


No Big Deal III

by Dasha (Dasha_mte), Dasha_mte



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-07
Updated: 2003-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dasha_mte/pseuds/Dasha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dasha_mte/pseuds/Dasha_mte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relax: you know how it ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Big Deal III

Oooo! Hey! Look, the monster is done. Thanks, everyone, for your patience and for waiting for something so H-U-G-E. This goes especially for Martha, who had to beta this dinosaur as well as cope with my endless ranting about cannon time. There might be some weird mistakes in there--but those are my fault, not hers.  


This is the final section, so don't worry. No cliffhangers.

This story is a sequel to: No Big Deal II

* * *

 _So, my darling husband, just so we keep our stories straight, how long have we been married?_

 _Long enough for me to get the seven-year itch, dear._

 _I was a child bride. When I kissed you before, you didn't seem to like it much. We don't want the neighbors to think our marriage is in trouble._

 _No, it was...it was good for me. Uh. I heard the symphony play. The earth moved._

* * *

The next few weeks were...not bad, actually. Pretty good. The cases were comparatively straightforward. The good guys always won in the end. My annual raise came through. Sandburg broke up with Sam again. The Jags were on a winning streak.

Actually, it would have been downright "great" if it hadn't been for Conner.

Blair thought I had a problem working with women. Which was just--stupid. I worked fine with women. Carolyn and I had always gotten along well. Back when I'd started the force, I'd worked on and off with Candy Blake for the better part of a year. We got along fine.

"Sheila Irwin," Sandburg said. "Drennan. Walters."

"Irwin is Internal Affairs," I protested. "Drennan and Walters were feds! It had nothing to do with them being _women._ "

The problem with women in law enforcement, was that so often they felt they had something to prove. They took stupid chances, ignored the rules, had no respect for procedure or safety, they tended to assume the end justified the means...all right. Maybe not 'often,' but sometimes.

And Conner was, by far, the worst of the lot. Worse even than Wells, who had finally settled in quite nicely and was dating Mayhew from Homicide (and leaving Blair alone). I did not have such high hopes for Connor. (Although Connor showed no interest in Blair, which was a point for her.)

Simon seemed to take some perverse pleasure in throwing us together. Maybe after all the hassles Blair and I had given him over the years, he thought this was a harmless way of getting his own back. Or maybe he thought she was such a loose cannon that it would take a sentinel to keep an eye on her.

Whatever. We put up with it--and with her, and managed to keep her from being too much of a walking disaster.

Actually, as a _cop_ she wasn't bad. She was, for example, an excellent bad cop. Better than me, maybe, because when a woman can project contempt and a deep enjoyment of violence it is scary as hell. She was a good shot and ruthless in hand-to-hand. But going undercover with her, pretending to be married...it taught me two things. First, the less Conner and I had to do with each other, the better we would get along. And, second, I didn't want to do the whole husband-picket fence-happily ever after thing. Not that way. Not with a woman--even one that wasn't Megan Connor. Whatever fantasies I'd ever had about a 'normal' life, they didn't look so attractive now.

The whole time I was playing happy family on Downing St., I was wishing that I was pretending to be there with Blair. Which was sort of silly because if I wanted to have Blair as a roommate I didn't have to pretend. And I didn't even want the nice, suburban house or the minivan or neatly trimmed grass or the neighborhood watch. I suppose...maybe that was what I expected to have, growing up. And maybe what I wanted with Carolyn, but it sure wasn't what I wanted now.

Now, I wanted to be with Blair, whatever that meant.

* * *

 _But despite this evidence of the manifestation of one or two heightened senses within single individuals, only one of my informants demonstrated significantly greater acuity in all five; only one of my informants was a sentinel. Chapters seven, eight, and nine will be devoted to the extent and nature of this sentinel's sensory abilities; the ways in which these abilities were deployed in personal and professional situations; potential and actual liabilities arising from increased information load, pain management issues, and 'signal to noise' interference; and methods--both successful and unsuccessful--used to help improve focus, stress management, and control._

 _It is necessary to keep in mind the fact that heightened senses do not exist in a vacuum; they are always wielded by an individual, whose personality, culture, and perspective determine much of how the senses are understood and deployed--if, indeed, they are deployed rather than (for example) ignored or denied. At the same time, variations in sensory input may contribute greatly to individual human experience over time. To put it another way, a sentinel and his senses cannot be considered separately in any meaningful way. For this reason, it is appropriate to briefly consider my primary informant in some detail._

* * *

I don't know what I'd expected. Not this.

It wasn't a surprise that he knew all this. Blair knew everything, even the things I'd rather he didn't. There wasn't any point in trying to deny it or stop the inevitable. And, anyway, the fact that he could very nearly read my mind had saved my ass more than once.

But still. I hadn't expected this.

It was embarrassing that he could put words to things that were concrete enough in their silence, that the secrets I would rather not remember could be laid out so tidily, that he could analyze me so clinically...never mind putting it out there for someone else to see.

 _It's just a peer review_

And what would it be when it wasn't just a peer review?

He had told me not to read it, though. So what was there to say? What could I say, now that I had broken the rules?

What would there be to say, anyway? Blair had taken all the words and laid them out in neat, impenetrable rows. The Truth was perfect and cold and already there. I had nothing to add. I resolved not to say anything.

Despite my resolution, my anger got away from me. Blair--still, impossibly--persisted in being warm and close and happy, his gentleness belying the icy researcher underneath. I couldn't pretend nothing was wrong. No surprise that Blair noticed: "Jim, what's the matter with you?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm feeling a little-- how did you say it? 'Territorially threatened to the point of paranoia'? I mean, what the hell is that?"

It just turned into an argument from there. Blair didn't understand--truth was truth to him and interesting was interesting and important was important. It didn't seem to matter to him that some of the truth was also bad and some of the interesting was embarrassing and some of the important was private.

And what really, really, really pissed me off was that I had given him access to everything, and _everything_ including our friendship, was being dissected for that dissertation. I had let him in everywhere--my work, my home, my past--and he had not left me a single corner privacy.

Hell.

I didn't have time to worry about this. We were on second shift, just about every city employee who could legally strike had walked out--including social services and most of the PD's civilian staff, and weirdos were coming out of the woodwork. You'd think it was a full moon.

We had a couple of really...odd small time cases that just didn't add up. And no, that feeling wasn't a 'sentinel thing'; Simon thought so, too. Blair would have noticed if he weren't so distracted with his latest stray.

Sandburg had picked up a mentally ill homeless person at a crime scene earlier. He was convinced the man was a witness. Or, possibly, some kind of supernatural visitation. Whatever. I would have said something to him about it, but I knew the ammo he would use to defend his latest project. The last appalling and pathetic person to follow Blair home was Stacy Newman. Surely when things like that happened, it was worth taking the chance. True, before Stacey there was Iris, but Blair would claim she didn't count, since he was trying to date her. And before Iris, there was me.

I wondered if I counted, though, since Blair was using me for research.

Shit. I didn't have time for this.

The weak link in the complicated puzzle of interlocking cases that didn't quite add up was a teenager who'd crashed a hot car into the police station. Interesting thing to happen, that. I wondered if it was, in fact, an accident.

The kid's lawyer wasn't around, so I slipped in to have a few words with him, feeling around, trying to shake him up. There was something there, I was sure. The car. The kid. The crime scene. The body.

The slimy lawyer.

All I had to do was prove it. Once I was sure what it was.

I went to find some food in order to have an opportunity to talk to the kid again. Informally. Some charity had sent over sandwiches for the fifty or so homeless or of diminished capacity who would normally be processed by social services next door.

Blair was passing them out. Of course. Almost all of the civilian support was gone; who else was there? When I saw him, I almost ran the other way, but I braced myself and walked up to the table. I hated fighting with Blair. I hated being this angry with him. And I didn't want to argue, to be angry. I just wanted him to understand....

"Uh, I'd probably stick to the tuna if I were you," He said tentatively.  
I sniffed, realizing that if the sandwich I was holding was ham, as labeled, it wasn't something I would want anybody to eat. I exchanged it for tuna and forced myself to meet Sandburg's eyes. He was watching me--still angry, but sad, and I saw that there was still a chance to sort this out. I took a deep breath. "All right. Look, Chief, uh...you know, uh, I...maybe I...maybe I overreacted."

"Maybe?" He was still angry. And bewildered. And disappointed.

I felt a little sick. "I know I shouldn't have read your dissertation--and I'm sorry for any transgressions--but I'm--" The knot in my belly was passing beyond 'sick' but I pushed ahead. This was Blair. I had to try. I had to believe that he would hear me. "You know, I thought we were friends." It sounded like pleading, but I didn't care.

"Right," he said, still angry.

"It doesn't read that way to me."

But Blair somehow didn't get it. He thought that what bothered me was the content, his analysis of my mind, my personality. And that did, in fact, suck, and it irritated the hell out of me, because even if he could read my mind, and analyze every last hidden motive and secret fear, he ought to be a bit more humble about it. But no. It wasn't his analysis that was the real problem. It was that he was willing to go public with it.

And then, just when things were about as bad as I could face, Blair's unfortunate nut put in his two cents: "You didn't answer him," he whispered to me. "What good does it do for a man to have ears that will hear a thousand miles if he cannot listen to the whispers of his own heart?"

Well that was just great. It was probably too much to hope that this guy would also have enhanced hearing or that maybe he just said random things that happened to sound vaguely relevant in context. Way too much to hope for. Nope. With my luck, this guy actually was an angel.

Blair, no doubt, would see supernatural help as a good thing. A message from upstairs. A spiritual experience. A divine intervention. A revelation. No doubt this sort of religious experience was just the sort of thing anthropologists lapped up.

Well, hell. If we were so fucked up that we needed this nut job, we wouldn't have a prayer anyway. The Heavenly Host never showed up when things were only moderately bad: it waited for a disaster of epic--even Biblical--proportions. Even assuming this 'guardian angel' was actually here to help, and not just dropping in to add to the confusion.

One way or another, we were screwed.

I went back to the case. I either had to break Kaplan (unlikely) or get the kid to roll over on him (tough, but possible). I talked to Simon and Megan. I talked to the kid. I talked to the DA. I talked to the kid again. I went round and round, in ever smaller circles, like a shark. An hour later, the little car thief had gone from 'suspect in custody' to 'witness' and Kaplan was nailed but good.

From there, though, things went downhill. Kaplan had tried to put out a hit on the kid. It nearly succeeded, and Sandburg almost got taken out with the collateral damage. His 'angel', Harold Blake--or maybe not Harold Blake--did get hit by a stray bullet.

We didn't get out till after dawn. I was heading home, Blair to the university. "I have to get this in today," he said, "and I have to type in the changes, search and replace your name, and find a working printer to print it on before I can do that."

"Search and replace?" I asked.

He stumbled to a halt, leaning tiredly against one of the supports in the PD parking lot. "Jim, you were never supposed to see it with your name in it. Nobody was."

"Then why did you use it?"

"Because....Look, when I take away your name...I feel like I'm erasing you. No, I know, I know! It has to be that way. You want it that way, and anyway it wouldn't be safe to leave you identifiable.....But I just. I can't write that way. In all of this. In all of this, the most important thing is you. And taking you out...feels wrong." He was looking at me with pleading, earnest eyes. Whatever he was saying, it was important to him, although it made no sense at all to me.

"When will you be home?" I asked.

"Noonish. If things go well."

"You coming in to the station tonight?"

He studied me, squinting slightly in the dim light of the garage. "Yeah."

"Ok," I said.

He was home by eleven. We both got some sleep and had cold leftover salmon and potatoes for dinner. We never made it in to work. On the way, I heard a holdup going down at a convenience store on Green Street. We were carpooling, so when I pulled over I had Blair call it in and ran around to the back door. I managed to take down the perp and secure the hostage, but the scumbag with the gun got a shot off. The bullet caught me in the left shoulder.

The impact pushed me backwards and dropped me on my ass in the aisle. There wasn't any pain. My ears were ringing and my eyes refused to focus, but even though there was a dark wetness blooming on my shoulder, nothing hurt.

How the hell did a punk like that drop me? During a stupid convenience store robbery? What was that?

I could hear Blair frantically calling for me, but I didn't answer him and only blinked weakly as he flung himself beside me. He was fluttering and crooning, which struck me as odd, because he wasn't upset. No, wait, he didn't _smell_ upset. I couldn't smell him. I couldn't smell anything. I blinked at him again.

"Hang on. I'll call an ambulance."

I nodded faintly.

I couldn't make out Blair's words as he talked on the phone. The floor under me was tilted and slowly began to spin. I swallowed, suddenly nauseous.

"Jim? Jim? Oh, God, is there pain?"

"No," I whispered. I still couldn't smell him, but he was looking at me in helpless horror. "Think I'm going into shock..."

He lowered me down onto the floor, using his thin jacket as a pad beneath my head. "It's ok, Jim. It's ok. You're going to be fine."

Lying down seemed to help. By the time the paramedics arrived the room was holding still. They took my vitals and started an IV and checked the bleeding, all the while asking Sandburg about the circumstances and my medical history. No doubt it was a novelty for them to actually have a bystander who could answer their questions. Sandburg even had a laminated card in his wallet detailing my drug allergies. I'd had no idea he carried one, too.

The IV, I think, did a lot to bring me around. By the time they were ready to transport, I was thinking clearly again and the pain had started. I groped for Sandburg with my good hand and tried to picture a dial.

"Jim?" he said worriedly.

"Bring the truck," I managed. The ambulance crew was already lifting me away.

It was only in the ambulance that I remembered the spotted cat in the back room. The jaguar that hadn't really been there. Another vision or visitation or something. Great.

I tried to tell myself that it was just a harbinger of being two minutes away from a bullet with my name on it, but the truth was, we were probably about to be screwed. This was a warning of some kind or a clue. Not clear enough to be useful, obviously. That would actually count as help.

I didn't have any time alone with Blair to talk to him about it in detail until the next morning when he came to pick me up from the hospital. By that time, I had decided not to go into it with him. I kept thinking about Blair carefully going through that odd vision for me, looking for some kind of meaning or symbolism--and then going into his room and coolly analyzing it for his paper. No, thank you. I told myself I had just imagined it. Stress or adrenaline, not a sign from god.

I slept for most of the next two days. Blair stayed close to home. He fixed my favorite foods and brought me water or juice or tea every time I woke. He hovered, and even though I was still sort of pissed at him over the damn book, I was glad. The pain, those first few days, was...not a lot of fun. I was too afraid of the pain pills to even fill the prescription--drugs and I had never mixed well, and being fully on line with my senses just made it so much worse. I'd been cautious back when it was just antihistamines messing with my perceptions or sedatives and analgesics not working most of the time. But after the mess with the raw opium....

Blair understood. Again and again he talked me through the exercises that let me turn away from the pain, that made my body forget it existed. He was always there when I needed him. I never had to ask.

After the weekend, I seemed to get over the worst of it. The throbbing in my arm settled down to a dull ache and I stopped sleeping all the time. Instead, I started to catch up on my reading. Blair still hovered, but that went on only for a couple more days before it became weirdly intolerable.

Any music he listened to--even if it was something I usually liked--sounded just awful. And even when he used headphones, I couldn't tune it out. His sneakers....frankly stank, despite the fact that he had just changed the odor eaters. I could smell them from across the room. He seemed to get progressively more careless and messy--every time I turned around, it seemed, his books were on the table, his feet were on the couch. He talked incessantly. His cooking was suddenly, inexplicably, bad. Nothing he did was right, and everything he did irritated me.

He sighed theatrically, suggesting that pain or boredom was making me testy. He suggested more relaxation exercises, to help with my 'moodiness'. But the meditations that had worked so well just a few days before seemed to have lost their magic. By the middle of the week he had changed strategies from hovering to flight. He stayed out all day and came home only late in the evening. Oddly, though, the peace and quiet this provided only seemed to help a little bit. By the time the doctor took out my stitches and proclaimed me ready to go back to work I felt crowded and hemmed in even when Blair wasn't home.

I decided that he must be right--I was suffering from bad cabin fever. Thank God I could go back to work after the weekend. I tried to keep that in mind, to keep a positive attitude. I was feeling better. I could go back to work in a few more days. But I was in an odd mood, irritated at Sandburg for putting the pots and pans away apparently randomly. I was thinking of reorganizing the kitchen--something simple and obvious, so even a vortex of chaos like Sandburg couldn't screw it up--

When I heard an animal at the hall outside. Big. Angry. Strong. Some kind of predator. Without thinking, I drew my gun and crept toward the door, thinking only of the danger. Focused. Ready. Sure.

That was when I realized I was loosing my mind. Because it was only Sandburg in the hall. Just Blair coming home. That was all. He looked at my gun in frightened astonishment, and I hurriedly put it away. I was embarrassed, irritated at him for _my_ madness...but deep down I knew it was me. Me, not _quite_ playing with a full deck.

God, I had to get back to work. Find my routine. Get on top of this. Some normalcy. I had to.

I made it through Friday and Saturday. My senses started....not spiking. Not exactly. It wasn't painful or anything. But I noticed things I normally wouldn't. Every siren or car alarm in town caught my attention, as though I were listening _for_ something. And I could smell, well, more than I wanted to. Every dog that walked by on the sidewalk. All the food cooking up and down the street. The dumpsters behind the building.

But what worried me most wasn't what I perceived, but how I felt. I felt worried. I felt watched. I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe, which was not a new feeling, but was usually accompanied by a first shoe.

Sunday morning I woke up smelling Blair's hands on the pillow case he'd folded because I couldn't do my laundry with one arm. When I went down to breakfast, I tasted him on all the dishes. It was irritating, and if he'd been around, I would have asked him about it, maybe, but he was gone again.

I knew this wasn't normal sentinel behavior, to get all weirded out by my own roommate. But even knowing that didn't stop me from scouring the place from top to bottom. We didn't have any really, really powerful cleaning products in the house--just all-natural enzyme shit that Sandburg kept around partly because he was a tree-hugger but mostly because he was overprotecting me. I went down to the basement laundry and got the bleach and diluted some of that to wash with. I scrubbed the kitchen, even the walls. I cleaned behind the stove. I vacuumed everything and then scrubbed the floors, too. By the end of the day I couldn't smell Sandburg all over everything, but I couldn't smell much of anything else, either. Well, never mind. My nose would recover. And in the meantime, the house felt clean.

At dinnertime, Sandburg still wasn't home. I heated up some left-over spaghetti, ate it off plates that didn't smell like anyone but me, and then fell asleep on the couch.

I dreamed I was in the jungle, stalking a predator which was also stalking me. I tracked it slowly, hearing it just beyond the trees, always just out of sight. It was hot, in the trees, and the light wasn't very bright. I paced the soft ground, leaving almost no tracks.

Almost might not be good enough, because this animal was very dangerous. Any trace I left, it would use to find me. I was a little afraid. Then I saw it, a flash of dark fur, of sharp teeth. A wolf, big enough to take a small child, if it wanted. Without hesitating, I fitted an arrow and let fly. The animal cried out as it was struck, and I felt a small triumph. I walked it down, trailing it a short way into the bush, but instead of the wolf I'd expected, it was Blair lying impaled and dead on the forest floor at my feet.

I woke heartbroken and sick, sweating. It was just a dream, I told myself. A dream. But I knew I was lying. It had been a blue dream. A special dream. Real.

I was still wired and miserable when Blair came home half an hour later. He didn't notice at first, being too distracted by the loft; even normal senses couldn't miss the job I'd done. He insisted I let him look at my shoulder, to be sure that I hadn't hurt myself with all that exertion. In fact, my shoulder was sore and a little red.

Sandburg sighed and looked at me closely. "Jim, are you ok?"

"Sure. Fine." But I thought about telling him about the dream. He might think it reflected some kind of repressed anger, which was just wrong. I wasn't repressing. I knew whether I was angry or not, and what I was angry about.

Or he might be very gentle and lead me through it like he'd led me through so much....But I couldn't forget that behind Sandburg's soft and slightly fuzzy compassion was a hard, sharp mind that dissected everything. All the unflattering truth he already knew about me had to eat away at his respect and affection. Falling apart over a bad dream....No. Not this time.

Or maybe those were both just excuses; I knew I should tell him, but I didn't feel inclined to share anything at all. Whatever the reason, I just didn't want to. So I told him I was ok, and went off to bed.

The next day was Monday, and I went back to work. Blair was out the door before I even finished breakfast--some project at the university. My first day back, I went in by myself.

Connor brought me in on her latest case--a robbery at a security company. Very smooth, very professional job. I read the file, saw the security tapes and walked the scene with her. I know she was secretly hoping to see some of my 'psychic' mojo, but there was nothing to find. Forensics had already been through and so had the cleaning crew. We started interviewing the employees.

Getting back to work didn't help. My senses, if anything, got more alert. The tap of footsteps up and down the halls of the PD sounded like they were passing right beside my desk. The floors looked filthy. There seemed to be dust bunnies everywhere. The hum of the florescent lights--a sound I'd gotten used to three years before--sounded like the drone of attacking killer bees. I could barely use the computer--the screen kept resolving to pixels--and I couldn't concentrate on the case anyway. I felt like I was being watched.

Sandburg had written that I was paranoid. He didn't know the half of it!

By Wednesday, I couldn't take it any more. After work, I went to see Sandburg in his office at the university--he'd been staying there late every night. I suspected it was because he was avoiding me. Well, we would talk about that. I would tell him everything. We would fix this. As I approached his door though--

There was this woman inside, and as I looked at her, she turned into a huge, rabid jaguar and leaped through the window, snarling. The glass shattered and spun around me, and I ducked, trying to avoid the claws--

And then there was just a woman, calmly coming toward the door. Just a woman.

I fled. It was already too late to talk to Sandburg. Way too late. I'd put it off too long, and now there was nothing I could do. My senses were out of control, the feelings I had weren't normal, and now I was seeing things in broad daylight. What if I had drawn my gun and shot that woman? I had drawn my gun on Blair, after all...

I had to get away from Blair. I was dangerous. Oh, God! That dream I'd had. The blue dream had been a message! I panicked. I freaked. I was a danger to Blair, I was that crazy.

God, I must be crazy. Here I was, trying to work out which of my delusions was a sign from God and which was just a hallucination. Somehow I made it back to the truck, trying to think what I should do. Give my badge and gun to Simon? I should, I should. But the idea filled me with horror. It would mean becoming naked and defenseless, and I just--I just couldn't! It was stupid to try to function as a cop, now, but unthinkable not to....

What could I do? Go to Blair? Nobody else certainly had a clue. But it was too late. There would be nothing he could do now, and he would stay and try anyway and he would just get hurt....

I could send him away. The idea made me feel sick, as bad as the thought of turning in my gun. As irritating as he'd been the last couple of weeks....I couldn't bear to give him up.

Could I bear to have him hurt? Could I bear to have him see me like this, to be watching when I finally disintegrated?

When I got home I packed up his things. He came in when I was finishing up, gathering his CD's and Indian figurines from the living room. I told him I didn't want to talk it out or analyze it, I just needed not to have anybody around right then. And then I fled. I got away from him before he could drag it out of me, before he could figure out just how far into insanity I had fallen and how fast I was still falling. I walked down the block and waited in the doorway of the dry cleaners until his car pulled away, loaded with boxes.

The next day when I arrived at the station, he was waiting for me, sitting at my desk. He looked tired and miserable. I felt simultaneously ashamed of my behavior and irritated that he was in my chair. "Sandburg," I said.

He didn't move. "You ok?"

I nodded, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes.

"Can we talk?"

"Not now," I said shortly, not willing to trust myself with anything more.

"What did I _do_ , Jim?" It was nearly a plea, and I had to grit my teeth.

"It wasn't you," I said. "I just need some space."

"Jim....I don't think space is what you need right now."

I forced myself to look at him. "Who gets to decide what I need? You? Or me?"  
It was his turn to look away. I felt a small triumph, knowing that I was winning, that I knew his buttons at least as well as he knew mine. And I also felt miserable. "You told me I could set my own boundaries, Chief. You taking that back?"

He stood up slowly. "No, Jim. I'm not taking that back." He looked at me and sighed, and my resolve wavered for a moment. "You know where to find me," he said, and he was gone.

The rest of the day did not go any better. If I'd hoped getting some more privacy at home would make things easier, I was wrong. At the station the pallet of smells and sounds pressed closer than ever. The door handles and railings were covered with a thin film of greasy sweat. The air was sour and thick-smelling. Everything on my desk--every pencil, every squeeze ball, every scrap of paper--smelled like someone else. I came back from lunch to find that foreigner at my desk using my phone, and Brown had dumped his crap in my space. It was too much, finally, and I lost it. Simon sent me home early.

I knew this was a bad sign. Objectively, I was aware that I was in trouble. But part of me didn't even care any more. The hemmed-in feeling was more important, and the feeling of being watched and invaded. Something was wrong, really, really wrong with my world, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. There were too many people, too many things. Everything was vivid and bright and distracting. I couldn't find the source of the problem.

Knowing it was weird and not particularly caring, I packed up everything in the loft except for a couple of pots and pans, a few dishes, the mattress and some of my clothes and put them down in the basement. It took the whole afternoon and part of the evening.

Even when I was standing in the empty, spotless loft, it didn't help. I still couldn't find it, whatever was wrong, whatever it was that was out of place.

Sandburg stopped by, with the foreigner. They were both startled by the state of the loft and clearly worried about me. They thought I'd gone round the bend. My sanity wasn't the real issue though, and as well-meant as their concern was, I didn't have time to give them any attention; I was vaguely annoyed with Blair and I'd never liked Megan, but neither of them was the threat.

Whatever the threat was. And dammit, I still didn't know. I turned my face back to the city, listening. Out there. Somewhere. And I had no idea what it was or how to stop it. "Something's going on out there," I said, even though I didn't really believe they could help. "Something very wrong. I've never felt anything like this before."

"Hey, Jim, what do you say you come inside, man?" Blair asked gently, paying attention to me rather than to the important problem. I wondered what would be the simplest way to get rid of them.

And then I heard the sirens. There. That was it. There. I ran for the truck. On the way I got the specifics from dispatch; a courier van was ambushed on the Toomi Bridge. No injuries, but the highjacker got away with the cargo.

I knew the area, and managed to catch up with the suspect vehicle on Lincoln. A couple of black and whites were coming in from the other direction, but even before the driver could have seen them, he pulled off into an alley and abandoned the car. I was right behind him, and charged into the alley with my gun drawn. He couldn't have moved that fast. Here. He was here. I had him.

I opened up, searching. In the cold breeze it was hard to pin down a scent, but I could hear--there, above me, one person on the fire escape. I focused my vision upward, taking aim. "Freeze! Cascade P.D.!"

And then I lost him in a burning flash of light. Just that quickly. Sandburg and Megan had caught me with a flashlight and my vision was completely derailed. Desperate anger and disappointment crashed down on me in a wave, but I pushed it aside and coordinated a search of the nearby buildings and alleys.

Nothing.

We lost him.

Simon sent us all home at about three in the morning. I lay down on the mattress upstairs, but I didn't sleep much. I was wired. Angry. Nearly frantic. All we had on this perp was that it was the same guy who'd pulled the Oberon Security heist. And since we had no solid leads on that, it got us precisely nowhere.

But whoever it was, whatever he was up to, he wasn't finished yet. And whatever he was doing, it was bad.

I kept remembering how dark that alley had been. So black the others couldn't even see to walk. But he could see; he'd moved so quickly. He'd had no more trouble with the dark than me.

The next morning, Blair came to the station after class. I was in the sixth floor briefing room, watching the video of the Oberon job over and over again. Every time I saw it, I was more certain.

"Hey," Blair said quietly. "Brown said you wanted to talk to me."

I was glad he'd come--I had an answer finally. Something concrete to tell him. Things were starting to make sense again. "Something weird happened at that warehouse," I said.

He gave me a hard look. "I hope this has something to do with why you threw me out of the loft."

What? Oh. Actually, it might. "Um, probably," I said. "This suspect has been one step ahead of us the whole time, and I'm telling tell you, I'm looking at the tape and I'm noticing that this guy's experiencing something akin to what I go through when I have a sensory spike, you know, if my senses are cranked up, and I hear a loud noise."

He frowned. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying there's another one out there like me!" And it was a relief to have an answer--or even just the beginning of an answer. I rushed ahead, willing Blair to understand. He would know what to do with this. He would know what to do next. "I've been having these experiences with this jaguar, like in the store. And I've been having these dreams--"

"What dreams?" he snapped.

"I don't know. The spotted cat. I had this other dream. I'm in the jungle. There's this--temple or-- something and--uh, there's this statue of a jaguar or whatever it is..."

Blair paled with astonishment. "You're having the same dreams...."

What? "Who's having the same dreams? The same dreams as who?"

"Jim--there is another sentinel, but there's no way that she can be our thief."

"She?" Oh, my God. "The lady in your office?"

"When were you at my office?"

Another sentinel. There was no question now. The predator stalking my city wasn't just some kind of criminal. It was a sentinel. There was something nasty out there that was as dangerous as I was. "Why didn't you tell me this?"

"I was meaning to, man. I was trying to get you two together in a controlled situation, that's all."

What? 'Controlled situation'? Was he talking about the research project? Did he think this was some kind of game? Some kind of study? "What the hell did you do?" I shouted. "What the hell did you do? Where is she?"

He stared at me with huge, shocked eyes and shook his head. "Jim, it--can't be her."

"There were no night vision goggles in that alley, Sandburg. Do you understand? It can't be anyone else! Where is she?"

"Home. Maybe," he whispered. "I have her address."

Without a word, I stalked to the door. We didn't speak again until we had pulled out of the PD garage. Blair huddled on the bench seat beside me, smelling of horror and fear and shame. I couldn't bring myself to feel too sorry for him. "How long has this been going on?" I asked.

"Thursday," he whispered, "I met her Thursday night here. Megan'd brought her in. She'd had a sensory spike and wrecked her car."

"And of course you spotted it right away," I said bitterly.

"She heard me talking to Brown. From across the room." He gave an ugly laugh. "I know the signs. Jim--it can't be her. She's just an artist."

"Oh. So it's some _other_ sentinel in Cascade."

But I knew, when she opened the door, that this was my predator. She pretended to be a normal kind of guilty suspect dancing with the cops. I pretended to follow the rules of 'innocent until proven guilty.' Neither one of us expected for a moment that the other would be fooled. There should have been a tremendous relief in knowing who she was, at last, and in having proof she was real and not some kind of delusion. But there wasn't. Locating her wasn't enough. I still had to beat her.

And she was smart. She smelled a little crazy, but she was in control of herself, and she had my abilities. Stopping her would be tough.

I managed to keep my temper nailed down and do cop things--I called from the truck and asked Brown to run her prints. I gave Simon my report. I went back to the alley to look for more clues. Now, when I could barely think straight, I fell back on the routine of police procedure, and let that keep me moving.

I had a strand of hair that smelled like Blair's sentinel. It was enough to get a warrant for a parole-breaker who was living under an assumed name and whose old MO involved high-tech cat burglary.

But we were too late.

She'd left her apartment, and booby-trapped it. The explosion would have taken out Megan if Barnes hadn't used a particularly pungent plastic explosive. When the charred remains in the apartment cooled we were able to identify exactly which of Oberon's clients was her target. It was the Mumford Center for Advanced Biology at Rainer, the hazardous materials department. We were too late there, too. She had already walked out with two canisters of nerve gas.

We turned the city upside down looking for her. We alerted the FBI and the State Police and everyone else we could think of--and again, we were too late. She boarded a plane to Colombia and left my jurisdiction. We got the word at about quarter of four the next morning.

That was it. It was over. She was gone.

She didn't feel gone. It didn't feel over. After so much hysteria and adrenaline, it was hard to accept that the predator was gone and there was nothing else I could do.

Megan sighed, and I saw the tightness in my gut reflected in her eyes. Well, this had been Megan's case too. "You two up to a late supper or early breakfast?" she asked glumly.

Before I could answer, Blair jumped in. "No, thanks. There's stuff we got to go over."

"There is?" After complete and utter failure, what was there to talk about?  
Apparently there was something. As soon as Megan had left us alone in the empty bullpen, he turned to me and said earnestly, "Look, Jim, I just wanted you to know I realize I was wrong for not telling you about Alex. I was only thinking about myself and about my work and somewhere along the line... I lost track of my friend."

Now. He wanted to talk about it now. The rabid predator had gotten away from us--still! Again! With nerve gas she just might be crazy enough to use, enough nerve gas to kill millions of people. And _now_ Blair wanted me to think about male bonding. "Well, Chief, I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know if I can get past this. To me, it was a real breach of trust and that struck really deep with me."

"Give me a break here. How was I supposed to know she was a criminal?"

"Chief, this isn't about her being a criminal. I've got to have a partner I can trust." I had not wanted to get into this. I really hadn't. I would have been happy to just ignore the whole thing, but he wouldn't let it go, he never let anything go, damn him, and I had to take a good look yet _again_ at the fact Blair's sentinel fixation was probably more important to him than I was. "Have you ever stopped to think what good all this research is doing anyway?"

"Yeah, Jim, I think about it every day. For one thing, it's helped you find out who you are."

Even in the middle of a fight, I hadn't expected him to throw that in my face. He'd pretty much skipped over that in the dissertation, at least what was finished already. Bringing it up now was a low blow--Blair, more than anyone, knew how little clue I had about who I was. He knew I couldn't even get a hold of who I _should_ be, and he was right there every time my world came crashing apart and I failed at who I thought I was. "Wait," I said coldly. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know who I am, okay? I don't need you or anybody else to help me define that. Is that clear?" He looked stricken, and it occurred to me that Sandburg hadn't been in on _all_ of my identity issues the last year or so. Well, I thought with a little regret, we certainly wouldn't be going into that today. "Maybe it's just better if you finish your dissertation or doctorate writing about somebody else."

"That's crazy," he exclaimed, and I realized with a bitter satisfaction that I had hurt him. "I know I--I made a mistake, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get past this, but if you..." he faltered slightly "If you've got to hang onto it...you know where to find me."

So I went home alone. The loft was empty and dark, and felt no warmer or safer then it had before, even though the predator was long gone from my city. As tired as I was, I was still too keyed up to sleep. I wished I had gone out for food with Megan. Or that I hadn't had the fight with Sandburg. Or that I'd stayed with Simon at the station. Or something.

When Alex called, I understood. She wasn't gone. It wasn't over. I still had a chance to take her down, and I wanted to do it with my bare hands. I don't remember what sound she displayed for me that identified her location. I don't even remember going back down to the truck or driving before Simon called to tell me that my quarry hadn't made to Columbia after all. He wanted me to wait for back-up. As if I would. As if anything mattered except bringing Alex Barnes down, or that I would allow anyone to do it but me.

It didn't occur to me that she would understand my senses, that she would know enough to use them against me. I wasn't thinking at all, really: where I was simply running on instinct, Alex was taking her time and planning ahead. I realized all this when I tracked her into the basement of the foundry and she turned on the equipment. The wall of sound closed in from all sides, constantly changing, creating a landscape I couldn't quite grasp. By then, though, it was too late: hindsight is 40/10.

I couldn't hear her, only the predator snarling from time to time. The shadows moved, I couldn't see her. Mistake. Mistake, I thought. But there was nothing I could do except carry on. I couldn't let her get away.

I heard a creak behind me, but it was just one of so many sounds. By the time I looked up, the gate was already falling. The weight of it struck me, and I tumbled backwards, falling further than just to the ground, down into the bottom recess of the elevator.

I landed hard, painfully, hitting my head and the healing hole in my shoulder. The noise continued to roll over me, tossing me like strong surf. I couldn't quite form a thought. The air was gritty and thick, and each breath caught in my throat. I had to get up, I had to stop her, but I could barely discern which way was up, let alone get my feet under me. I scrambled against the floor. The world spun and screamed around me.

"Jim! Jim!" It was Megan's voice that caught me, gave me a point to focus on to orient the world. I looked up, saw the bottom of the elevator descending, and saw Megan's hands, reaching for me. I stretched toward her. She wasn't strong enough to lift me, but she was strong enough to hold me, and her weight was enough of a counter-weight to allow me to scramble out of the pit.

"Where is she?" I demanded with my first free breath. Where was Alex?

"Over here," Megan said, but Alex was already gone. Megan cursed.

I wasn't ready to give up. Never. But where was she?

The predator growled, its hate, its hunger echoing around my head. And then, on the heels of the growl, I heard the wolf cry out. I could see it again, bleeding bright blood onto the forest floor. Blair. "We've got to find Sandburg," I said. "Come on!"

On the way to Rainer, Megan kept asking why. Why would Alex go after Blair? They barely knew each other. How did I know that was where she was headed? What if Blair wasn't at the university?

I ignored her. I had no answers for those questions. Alex couldn't be far ahead of us. We would catch up to her there. We would stop her. Blair would be fine.

Megan called for back up. Maybe this sudden desire to follow procedure was brought on by my strange behavior. Whatever. It was dawn when we drove into the quad. Three unmarked PD cars pulled up behind us, but I ignored them, running toward Blair's building.

As I reached the top of the steps, though, I realized that Blair wasn't inside and neither was Alex. Damn. Where were they? Had I wasted all this time coming to the wrong place?

I turned around, uncertain what to do next--

And saw the figure, face down in the fountain.

No. Please.

I ran back down the steps, calling for help, and charged into the cold water. God. God. Please, no. But it was Blair, and he was heavy and limp as Henry and I dragged him out.

We laid him face-up on the short grass. He was blue and wet and smelling of chlorine and old leaves, but what snared me, what I couldn't get my head around was his silence, his utter stillness. I listened again and again, thinking that this terrible quiet had to be because I couldn't focus properly. It couldn't be because there was nothing to hear.

Simon screamed at me, and I realized that I'd zoned. "Jim! Can you hear a heartbeat?"

"No. Nothing." I choked on my answer, barely hearing it over the terrible quiet. Blair couldn't be dead. He _wasn't_ dead. He just needed--

I didn't know what he needed. I didn't know what to do for him, how to help him.

Simon did know what to do. Even as I knelt there, helplessly staring, he started CPR, prodding me to go with him. Yes, I thought. This was right. We could help Blair. I took the head, capturing his mouth and breathing for him. I could taste the water, but not him. As the air went in, I could hear it, hissing like the sound a straw makes when you get to the bottom of the cup. He was full of water. "Breathe, damn it," I whispered.

We did round after round. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. With each cycle, I listened for Blair's heart to move on its own. Each time he breathed out the air I gave him, I silently begged him to breathe in again. But whatever we were doing, it wasn't enough. Blair remained silent and motionless.

The ambulance arrived, at last. Hands caught me, pulled me back from Blair, but I was glad, relieved. Here was help, real help. They could do what Blair needed. He would be all right.

The paramedics took over the work Simon and I had been doing, and I crouched beside Blair's head, whispering for him to come back to me. Here was help. And Blair was still there. He wasn't dead. He could do this. "Come on, Chief. Come on." I begged and cajoled, but Blair didn't move. The thought fully formed that he might not. That he could die here, on this grass, thinking that I hadn't forgiven him, thinking that I hadn't come when he needed me. Oh, God, please. I was praying, even though I knew no one would answer me, no one would help us.

The paramedic at Blair's head removed the bag and stood up. "I'm sorry, guys," he said sadly. It took me a moment to realize this meant they were giving up, they were declaring Blair dead, and packing up to go home.

Desperate, I stumbled forward and threw myself down beside Sandburg again, calling for them not to give up. There was still nothing from Blair, nothing, and whatever it was he needed, I didn't know what it was. Frantic, hopeless, I began single person CPR. "Come on, Sandburg. Come on, damn it!" But I knew, even as I did it, that this wouldn't be enough, that Blair was being torn away from me and I was helpless.

"Jim, he's gone. Let him go." Simon reached down, trying to restrain me. I ignored him, screaming at Blair instead, begging him to do what I couldn't and come back to me. "Jim!" Simon and Brown hauled me backwards, held me with strong arms, whispered to me that Blair was gone.

I fought them. I didn't want their comfort--or their help, if this was what their help would be. "No! No! He's alive!"

Simon shook me, "Come on! Stop it!"

I didn't listen. Simon was only an obstruction, a barrier between me and Blair. I tried to climb over him. "No. Oh God, no." I was praying, begging, although I knew that nobody would answer us, nobody would help us. This couldn't be happening. Please, no. I would do anything.

But even then, I saw the solid world fall away leaving only the blue dream that lay underneath. And there, in the cool, blue jungle, I saw Blair, pausing for just a moment to look at me sadly and then turning and running away. Leaving, right then. In a moment it would be over, and he would be gone.

No. Please.

"Use the power of your animal spirit."

It was Incacha's voice, but I would have obeyed the devil himself if he had offered to help. I had no idea _how_ to do it--the jaguar wasn't something I 'used': it flitted in and out on its whim, fucking up my life whenever it felt like it. But the jaguar lived in my blue dreams, and when Incacha loosed it, I raced after it to the blue world that held Blair.

I could see Blair--the wolf--running away. I charged after it, faster than two feet could have carried me. Suddenly, he was running toward me instead of away, though whether this was because the wolf had turned back or I had gotten ahead of it, I didn't know. I could see his eyes, painfully lucid and sad as he got nearer, and I ran faster, leaping as he leaped, reaching as he reached.

I had expected to catch him, but the wolf passed through me, and for a moment, everything in my world was Blair. I felt his bewilderment and his exhaustion and his thick disappointment at having failed at everything....

He was so sorry he had hurt me....

And then he was gone, and I was kneeling on the ground in the bright spring sunlight with my damp pants clinging to my legs like icy fingers. For a moment more Blair rested, cool and motionless, under my hands, and then a single heartbeat rocked us both like thunder. It came again and again before stumbling weakly and failing. I shouted to Simon and began CPR again.

Suddenly, Blair seized under me and vomited a rush of warm water. His pulse was back, and racing. Calling for help, I pulled him toward me, onto his side, and he coughed mouthfuls of water onto my knees. The EMTs came back, and I let myself be nudged aside again. I didn't know what to do with my relief. This reprieve--I wasn't prepared. This wasn't the way horror ended--Lila, Danny, Bud...the long moments kneeling on the ground in hopeless desperation had always been followed by grief before. I had expected that for Blair, a hollowness would swallow me whole, that I would drown myself in the ocean of grief.

But--there he was alive. They were giving him oxygen, swathing him in blankets, trying to ask him questions. I didn't believe in miracles, and I didn't expect mercy anymore. How had this happened? How was it that I was standing here in joyous relief rather than screaming in pain? How could I say thank you for this? There wasn't enough gratitude in the world for this moment. He was alive.

On the ground, Blair's eyes slitted open and fastened on me. I tried to smile encouragingly, to let him know that it was over, he'd be all right now. The eyes slid closed again, but they opened once more in the ambulance. Squeezed into a corner of the cramped compartment, I couldn't touch him, but I looked back. He held my gaze most of the way to this hospital.

They took him away from me again at the emergency room door. I let them; after all, I could hear him just fine. I stood in a corner of the waiting room, leaning back against the wall with my eyes closed, just listening. They asked him the year and the president. He stumbled a little on his address, but finally said 852 Prospect, and I cheered inwardly. Damn right, that's where you live, I thought.

I didn't notice Simon coming up beside me, and when he touched my arm, I jumped. "The kid ok?" he asked. I could still smell tears on him.

"Yeah. Um. Yeah. They're gonna keep him a while. Sometimes, with--with drownings there's problems hours later. No, don't worry. He's going to be fine."

For a moment Simon was silent. Blair was quiet too, but I could hear his breathing and I could hear him still shivering slightly.

"We haven't found Barnes yet," Simon said. "Megan's coordinating the search. Don't worry. We'll get her."

"No, you won't," I said, realizing that it was true. "She's gone."

"Are you sure?" I nodded. "How do you know?"

"I can think," I said. I gasped, suddenly understanding. "Oh, God! Simon! I've been--I mean, I knew I _was_ but--"

"Yeah. No kidding."

"I was so crazy."

"Yeah." He sighed, and I had to look away, embarrassed by all the little ways I had completely lost it. And all the big ways. Before I could go too far into my shame, Simon cleared his throat and said awkwardly. "But look, Jim, I gotta be fair; you were the only one who had any idea what we were dealing with here."

I started to answer him, but broke off when I heard an orderly push Blair's gurney into an elevator. "They're moving him," I said. "I gotta go."

I listened until I knew what floor he was on, then slowly made my way upstairs. He was ok. He was ok. I could be grieving right now, my life could be over, but it wasn't, because Blair was ok.

In the hallway outside his room, though, I stumbled and halted. Oh. Shit! The things I had said to him! The things I had done. Oh, my God. There were no apologies to cover that. What could I possibly say? 'Oops. Sorry I threw you out on the street at night with no warning, Chief. I wasn't myself?' 'Sorry I denied you and your work and forgot the fact that you have saved my life every single day since I met you?' I wanted to run away and hide, but I couldn't _not_ walk into that room. I couldn't not be with him....

They had placed him in a private room--it wasn't official yet that Alex wouldn't be back, and there would be a guard on the door soon. Blair was propped up in bed, hooked to an IV and a heart monitor and oxygen. He was alert and his color was good, but he seemed, somehow, _inwardly_ pale. Even with all the help I could give him, coming back had taken too much of his strength.

I swallowed hard and tried to smile. "You know, Chief, if you want to meet nurses, there are easier ways."

His eyes flew to me and he managed a tired smile. "That's great, man, that's great. _Now_ you tell me." He kept looking at me, and all I could do was look back. I wanted to take him in my arms. I wanted to touch him everywhere. I wanted to bury my face in his hair and lose myself in his scent. It hurt, standing there thinking about how close it had been. I scrambled, trying to cover, to keep things uncomplicated, but Blair beat me to the punch. "Thank you," he said gently.

"I couldn't let you die. You owe me last month's rent." I smiled teasingly, hoping he wouldn't point out that he didn't pay me rent or that he didn't live with me any more. If he did--I hoped I would be able to start begging quickly enough.

But Blair just rallied that tired smile, "Oh, that's right. Sorry about that."

I leaned over him. "You doing all right?"

"Yeah. You know. I'm all right." He glanced at me almost shyly. "I saw it. The whole out-of-body experience." And he told me what coming back had looked like from his perspective. I hadn't expected it to be anything anyone else could see, but the details were the same, even the kinds of animals involved.

"The same image. I saw the same image."

"You had the same vision?"

"Yeah. It was Incacha who guided me how to bring you back." And it was a tremendous relief not to have been there alone. Well, obviously, Blair had been there, too. But even with Blair keeping an eye on my supernatural incidents before, I had always felt very isolated, as though I were taking on the whole spirit world alone.

Blair laughed, not the least bit phased by the Great Unknown. "I can't believe this. Einstein said the greatest experiences we can have are the ones with the mysterious. We are definitely there, my brother." He smiled, finding the scariest shit in the world exciting. "Come on in, man. The water's nice."

I winced. Blair knew my thoughts on this subject very well. "Chief, I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you."

He sighed sympathetically and leaned slightly toward me, whispering, "Hate to break it to you, big guy. It's a little late."

Wasn't that the fucking truth. I was already hip deep; it was too late to be complaining now. And anyway, I couldn't complain; it was the damn jaguar that had saved Blair, the only reason he was alive now. I couldn't wish it gone, or that it had never existed at all. I swallowed hard, yet another lump rising in my throat.

Blair patted the bed beside him. I sat down, grateful to be welcome. Blair managed a small smile, and let his eyes drift closed for a moment. I wanted to touch him, to feel his heart under my hands, to feel his warmth. Blair opened his eyes again. "You ok?"

"Me? Yeah!"

"She messed you up pretty good...."

"She's gone."

"Ah...." He took a deep breath. "She get away?"

"Yeah. But we'll find her. Blair, I promise--"

"I know. It's ok." He looked at me for a minute and then lifted my right hand and placed it on his chest. His heart was a slow hammer, and my eyes misted up. Alive. Not just a little alive. Strong-alive. Joyous-alive. Tired, yeah, but ok. I let the thunder shake me. I let the tides of his breath rock me like a boat on the bay. I focused on his heat until it burned against my palm.

"Jim?" he said softly. "It's ok, buddy. Come on back."

Slowly, I looked up. "Where's your stuff?"

"Megan's."

"Ok," I said.

He nodded. He sighed and let his eyes drift closed. I stayed until he fell asleep, and then, although it hurt to tear myself away from him, I got up and went to work.

Alex.

She was out of our jurisdiction, but she was still our problem. My problem. For starters, she had walked off with enough nerve gas to kill millions of people, and had done it right under my nose. But more than that, nobody else knew what she was, what she was capable of. Whoever went up against her next didn't stand a chance.

There was also something of a time limit--even aside from the business with the VX. Sooner or later she would find out Blair was alive, and then she would be back. He was just too dangerous to her. He knew too much, both about sentinels in general, and about Barns in particular. I knew better than anyone just how much information Blair could get in a short time, and he'd had nearly a week to work with her. He would know her capabilities, her limits, her weaknesses. If he tried to use what he knew against her...he'd win. No question. And he worked with me, Alex knew that.

So. I had to stop her. Before she had a chance to do anything with that nerve gas and before she came back to finish what she started with Blair.

I went back to her apartment. I didn't know what I was looking for--the department had been over it and over it. But we had nothing else to go on, no clues, no rumors. Megan had found no trace of her anywhere.

When the first vision started, I deeply and sincerely regretted my words to Blair: I would much rather take the trip with him than without him. Given a choice, I would not take it at all, but that was a choice I didn't have, if I was serious about catching her.

The first images, the echoes of her hands, her voice, made me shudder and gag, and the connection vanished. I took a couple of deep breaths and began again, walking slowly around her destroyed rooms, standing where she had stood, touching where she had touched. I saw her showing Blair her art. I saw her dressing in her black clothing and sharpening her claws. I saw her with a man, planning the jobs at Oberon and Rainier.

It was half blue dream and half memory, swirling around me like fog or dark wind. Glimpses. Whispers. I sank into it, trying not to think about being afraid or how I would get out. I saw Alex in sunlight, smelled the warmth and the salt. Where are you, Alex? Where are you? But it wasn't that easy.

I took the little I had and put together a case to take to Simon. He took the news about as well as I expected: "You got all this from a _vision_?"

He would rather not know, I was sure, but I wasn't going to start lying to Simon now. "Yeah. I got a clear mental image of her talking to him, and then I saw a beach."

"A beach in Sierra Verde?" he said doubtfully.

"I know it's going to sound odd what I'm going to tell you, but Alex and I are both sentinels." Simon snorted quietly and I winced. Neither one of wanted to live in a world that substituted mysticism for, say, good old fingerprinting. But I had been trying to ignore this for years, and it hadn't gone away yet. "I know, I know," I said. "But somehow we're connected."

And Simon--Simon was braver about the whole mess then I would have credited. He gave in and made reservations for Sierra Verde.

I left Simon's office in a hurry--I had a 'to do' list as long as my arm, and the flight left at seven that evening. First I went to see Megan and Joel. I found them together, talking quietly in the break room. Joel had just gotten back from vacation. When I came in, he stood up slowly and stationed himself in a silent loom beside Conner.

"How's Blair?" Connor asked.

"He's better. Ok. They want to keep him until tomorrow afternoon, to be sure."

"That's good to hear," Joel said, watching me coldly. I winced, thinking about what he must have heard.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I said carefully. "We have a lead on the Barnes case. Simon's making arrangements right now for us to go after her. I was hoping...the two of you could look after Blair while I'm gone." I swallowed. "Also--Megan, I think most of his things are at your place. I'd like--I'd like to get them before I go."

Joel scowled, but Megan reached up and put a hand on his arm. "I'll bring them over. I'm sure you don't have a lot of time." Her voice was cool, but even: she was cutting me a break, although I wasn't sure why.

"Thanks," said, looking at both of them. "This, uh, this means a lot to me."

I went home to pack, grabbing only the bare essentials, and then hurried to the hospital. I wanted to see Blair one more time before I left. There were things I wanted to tell him, before I left. Just in case.

Alex had beaten me every time we'd met. Nobody else had a chance against her, but it wasn't a sure thing that I did either. In the last round I had nearly lost Blair. Now--I wasn't completely sure that I would be coming back. Not completely.

But Blair was asleep. Curled onto his side and snoring a little. I stood over him, listening to the quiet thud of his heart, thinking all the things I ought to say...but maybe it was just as well. How could I say good-bye? And if I did, and he realized what I was doing, he would rip my head off and feed it to me, which wouldn't be of any practical help at all.

Sighing, I planted a kiss on his forehead that didn't wake him, and then I left.

On the plane, the sleep I hadn't been getting at home finally caught up with me. It wasn't restful, but it was sleep. I dozed in and out of blue dreams of Alex. I saw the temple and I saw the trees. I stalked her in a jungle I had never seen before. I stalked with her in the same jungle. I saw her as Alex, and I saw her as the spotted cat, and in both bodies she watched me with hungry, possessive eyes.

When I woke I was still tired...and also hungry and restless and bothered by a killer hard-on.

Hell.

It wasn't a direct flight, of course. There was a long layover in Dallas and another in Mexico City. When we finally got to Sierra Verde, it was eight in the morning and we still had an hour's bus ride to the little tourist town Hettinger's buyer operated out of.

We checked in at the hotel and went to the local police station, where we made a good chunk of progress a lot faster than either of us had expected: The police had seen Hettinger, all right. He was lying in their morgue.

Alex's scent was all over the body. It riveted me, to be so close again. I tried a couple of deep breaths, but they only made me dizzy. Simon managed to get us a few moments to examine the body. I found her lipstick, the place where she had grabbed him to break his neck.

She had killed her own partner.

Because he was betraying her. For money. For a million dollars more he was going to sell her out and so she had killed him, feeling only a tiny jolt of triumph and no regret at all.

I felt a sudden wash of pity for the lost animal who was calling herself Alex Barnes. The only person in the world who had understood what she was going through, who had actually given a shit about her was Sandburg--and she had done her best to kill him. Her partner--the only 'friend' she had--had cheated her, and treated her with such contempt that he hadn't even bothered to try very hard to conceal his indiscretions.

Compared to that, my life was a cakewalk. What had I been angry at Blair for? Daring to look at my faults and admit they existed and then loving me anyway? Oh, yeah. Real big sin there. Unforgivable.

God....Poor Alex. How stupid and unlucky. She hadn't seen the chance Blair was offering her. She didn't recognize hope when it was sitting right next to her, admiring her art and talking about grounding and centering, and now it was too late.

We made arrangements to meet the local police chief later that afternoon in a caf to talk about the case, then Simon and I split up for errands--he had to go to the consulate and I had to pick up the rental car and check in with Cascade. I also wanted to take a look at the hotel where Hettinger had been staying. I went there first. Nothing. The wait at the rental place was long, and the employees there fundamentally confused in ways that I wasn't equipped to deal with just then: I was out of body about a third of the time by that point anyway, and just not up to arguing in my rusty Spanish. By the time I finished all my errands and made it back to the hotel to make the call, it was after three-thirty.

I was so preoccupied I didn't realize there was someone in my hotel room until I was at the door. I could hear them, heartbeats and movement, but nobody speaking. Silently, I drew my gun and flung open the door.

It was Sandburg. And Connor.

"What are you two doing here?"

"Oh, I heard you and Simon came to Sierra Verde without me so I thought I'd come and help you. Did you find her?" Megan was blithe and cheerful about bringing Sandburg into this viper's nest, putting to rest any thoughts I'd had about her developing some common sense.

But I was--so glad to see Blair. And I knew, now that he was here, there was no sending him away. I couldn't, after all he'd been through, bring myself to yell at him. So I took him to Simon and let him do it for me.

Megan had barely finished her 'I'm here to help and I don't care about authority or rules or even thinking' tap dance when somebody tried to kill us. Or, given that the method was something big and public and inefficient like a tank (and not something very efficient and final, like a car bomb) _not_ kill us, but scare us off.

We spent the rest of the day in hiding, and for that night bunked down in a little church at the edge of town. I didn't get a moment alone with Conner until she slipped into the hall to use the bathroom. I met her in the narrow hallway. "What the hell did you think you were doing, bring him here?"

"Well, for starters, I didn't bring Sandy, I followed him. I thought, under the circumstances, it might be best if he didn't travel alone."

My eyes closed involuntarily. Right. Sandburg hadn't gotten together with her and concocted some wild scheme. Blair probably hadn't bothered with the scheme. "How did he find out so fast?"

"He badgered it out of Joel, of course." She frowned, "Since we're having such a nice heart to heart, perhaps you'd care to explain just why he feels so responsible for Barnes anyway? And don't tell me this is about--what happened at the uni. She barely knew him. What? Was she using him to case the campus? But even so--"

"Conner." I sighed. "I can't explain. I just--can't. It would just sound crazy. Look, you've done a great job so far, and I appreciate it. If you want to go back to Cascade--"

"Are you kidding? And miss all the fun?" She paused for a moment longer, looking at me hard, and then went back into the sanctuary.

Lying on the hard pew, I dreamed about Alex all night. Blair thought this would be a good idea, that my visions would give us an edge, but I was getting more and more lost in them all the time. Sometimes I forgot why I wanted to find Alex, only that I did want to find her. It was...consuming.

I kept dreaming her as human. I was always moving toward her, over and over again taking her in my arms. I knew, distantly, that I was in some kind of trouble--even with Laura the jewel thief I hadn't been so completely lobotomized by my feelings. Again and again I touched her, pulled her into my arms, tasted her. I would forget who we were, why she was dangerous, what she had done. I wanted her, and I wanted it to be physical and sweaty and overwhelming. Again and again I would press myself against her, only to wake on the hard bench with the sound of Sandburg softly snoring behind me and an empty, frightening longing in my gut. I should wake Blair. I should tell him. Never mind how badly we needed to find Alex, we had to make this stop, before I got completely lost...

But the dream Alex looked at me with hunger and delight and my eyes only fell closed again.

Until the last time, when I woke up on the beach, my knees wet from the damp sand and the sunrise casting brilliant stars on the ocean. Alex was against my body, in my arms, in my mouth. She didn't taste the way her dream did.

"Jim! What's going on?"

I looked up, surprised to see Blair in my dream, since he only rarely made an appearance. I wondered what I was supposed to do. Something...wasn't quiet right, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

Alex reached behind me and drew my gun out of the holster. She pointed it at Sandburg, which I was fairly sure was _not_ right. I took the gun away from her. She looked at me in disappointment and pain, and I smelled her frustration before she stood up and raced away, leaving small footprints in the sand.

"Jim, come on!" Sandburg shouted, "Stop her!"

I swayed, trying to put two thoughts together. I had the gun in my hand; that would stop her, but I couldn't. I couldn't...

Blair came down the beach and stood looking up at me. "Are the lights on?" he growled at last. "Is there anybody home, Jim?"

I managed a slow nod.

"So you can hear me?"

I met his eyes and nodded again before looking toward the spot where Alex had disappeared.

"This was our chance to end this now. To get her. To get the gas. Can you explain why we're _not_ doing this, Jim?"

I shook my head slowly, and Sandburg rocked back and forth, trying to master himself. After a moment he blew out his breath heavily and said, "What is she doing to you?"

Again I could only shake my head. "I'm sorry." I was.

"Is it chemical?"

That would make a very nice explanation. But it wasn't. I could feel the difference. "No."

"It's the visions then. She's playing with your head again. But...it isn't like before, is it?"

I looked at him, so calm about the fact that I'd just been kissing the woman who had tried to kill him. So calm. "When I'm awake. I have them when I'm awake. I see her...during the day. All the time. Not just the cat."

He nodded slowly, thinking. "So why is it different? In Cascade you were...anxious? Paranoid?"

"Crowded," I whispered. "Surrounded..." But that wasn't the right word. I couldn't think of the right word. I shook my head.

"And here...it's all about?"

"Sex. Here it's all about sex."

"Right, so why did it change? Is it the neutral territory? It's been different since you got here, right?"

"Not since....In Cascade, I had to find her. I had to."

"Right. Yeah."

"So...I went looking."

Sandburg spread his hands to indicate the lovely tropics around us. "Well, yeah."

"I went to her apartment. I...let her in. So I could find her. Only it...was different. And it's gotten worse."

"Crap. You're saying whatever is letting you track her is what's screwing you up."

"Yeah. Maybe. Sort of. I couldn't use the gun. I couldn't even point it at her, as if...as if something held me back."

"Something from the visions?"

"I don't know, maybe." We had started back down the beach. The sand was damp and gave unsteadily under my feet. I felt alone and ashamed about what had just happened, and as much as I wished it hadn't happened....even more I wished Blair hadn't seen it.

But Blair, as always, was trying to solve our problem "This could be the link we're looking for. Out on the beach, you and Alex recreated something you've already shared in a vision."

No kidding. What the hell was I going to do?

The four of us spent the morning checking hotels and rental agencies for Alex, the afternoon looking for her buyer. It was late that night before we finally got the lead we were looking for--it took me breaking into a drug runner's compound to do it, and a huge risk on Connor's part, but we had what we wanted.

We left the church early the next morning for the three hour drive into the mountains to Monte Leon, and a long way up a dirt road towards the river after that. We had to leave the car eventually, but we couldn't have driven to the rendezvous anyway.

The hike to the meeting place took longer then we'd planned. When we got there, Arguillo was already in place. I ignored him, and began to scan the woods surrounding the clearing for Alex. She was close, she was coming, but I couldn't--

A helicopter passed close, easing up the narrow valley. Alex, of course. When you are about to collect millions you don't walk. The helicopter landed by the river on the other side of Arguillo and Alex got out. She was careful, trying to listen. So that was what a sentinel looked like, working the deal.

But she wasn't as good as I was. Blair had told me about her limitations, back in Cascade after we'd paid her that first visit. For Alex, listening was hard and painful.

I heard the men, hiding under camo in the clearing. At least two, maybe more. I knew, suddenly, how things would go down: As soon as Arguillo had his hands on the nerve gas, they would appear and take Alex out. She was armed; maybe she could take one of them with her. Then Simon would order Arguillo's men to freeze, they were surrounded by police. There would be another firefight, which we would win, and then we would have the nerve gas _and_ Arguillo on international chemical weapons charges.

And Alex, lost and greedy and full of hate, would be dead. I surged to my feet, suddenly afraid for her, shouting, "Alex! Get back. It's a trap."

It was like throwing a rock into a beehive. Below us, on the narrow, white flood plane, Arguillo's men sprang up like armed blossoms, firing at Alex, firing at us. We dove for cover. Alex returned fire and raced back towards the helicopter, which was already powering up. As it took off, they continued to fire after her for a moment before running for the ATVs.

And then it was over. Alex's helicopter didn't sound right, but it wasn't going to fall immediately. Arguillo was gone, taking his surviving henchmen with him. It was over. "Chief, you ok?"

Blair was looking at me in fury. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. But _what_ is wrong with you?"

In the silence that followed, I realized that we did not have Alex, we did not have Arguillo, and we did not have the nerve gas. Aw, God. Simon and Megan looked ready to kill me.

I looked after the helicopter. It would be in the air for miles yet. We had a long hike ahead of us. I glanced apologetically behind me and started. After a moment, I heard the other three start to follow.

Blair scampered up and whispered in my ear, "Wanna talk about this?"

I shook my head. I didn't need to talk. I already knew what the problem was. Alex had gotten to me with these damn visions. Hell, they had gotten to her, too, because with all the lead she'd sprayed, not one shot had been in my direction, even though she'd been happy enough to kill me a few days before. But these feelings, this pity and protectiveness and worst of all this _attraction_ to her was the danger. You didn't feel sorry for the enemy. You could respect her, yes, but that wasn't what I was feeling, and the feelings I was having were only getting in the way.

Keeping me from doing my job.

Endangering my friends.

This had to stop.

It was over an hour before anybody tried to talk to me again. "She got away with the damn nerve gas," Simon snarled.

"I can find her, Simon. Hold on a second." I sniffed, following my nose to the ground. It made me wince, the bright sharp smell of helicopter fuel. I really hated that smell. We were close, though. "I can find her. I just don't know what will happen when I do."

"We can't take that chance."

I could find her, though. I wasn't close, by any means, but I could feel her. I let go, just a little, and felt the echoes of the chopper going down, of her terror.

Blair reached down and touched me gently. " Jim, you all right?"

No. Not even close. But I could find her.

"Have we decided whose side you're on?" Megan asked sharply.

"He's with us," Blair said, and again I felt guilty. He had such faith in me. He was so sure. I wasn't sure I could live up to it this time. "We'll get the gas and the girl. We're back on track."

"She was in a helicopter. By now, she could be halfway to Panama."

"And that helicopter's leaking fuel," I said. "Let's just keep heading upriver." I took off again, following the pull that was Alex.

"Jim, even if the chopper goes down, there's no way for us to track her in this bush."

I ignored Simon. He would come or he wouldn't. I would find Alex, one way or another.

We walked, climbing steadily, the ascent only broken occasionally by slight cuts and passes that took us around the ridgelines rather than over them. The forest was vivid, bright and green and pungent, alive with small animals and insects. I saw every detail, but the images passed away as quickly as they formed. I lived only in the present, aware only of Alex, distant, but getting closer.

"Ellison! God damn it, will you listen to me?"

I stumbled to a halt, nearly tripping over Connor who had planted herself in front of me. "What?" I said stupidly.

"We need to stop. We have to set up camp."

I shook my head. We couldn't stop. We hadn't found her yet, and while she wasn't moving anymore, she was still too far away.

"Yes," Connor said sharply. "We do." Her eyes slid past my shoulder, and I glanced back.

Sandburg looked like hell. He was white and sweating, despite the exercise and cooling air. His head hurt, his feet hurt, he was trying to hide how out of breath he was and how exhausted. "Right. Camp." The sun, I realized, had passed behind the mountains. It would be too dark for them to see soon. I walked back to where Blair attempted a casual lean against a tree. "How you doing, Chief?"

"I'm fine. Really. Jim, we can't stop. Alex--"

"Isn't going anywhere right now. Come on." I took his backpack from him and ran my thumb over his forehead.

"It's nothing," he said. "We've gained a little altitude, that's all. I'll drink some more water."

I looked around and settled on a flatish gap in the trees as our campsite. I sent Connor off for water; I gave her the water bottles and purification tablets and pointed her toward a spring a hundred yards away. Then I sat Blair on a flat rock and began a pit for a small fire. It would get cool after dark.

Dinner was pork-chop MREs and coffee. I ate without particularly noticing or caring about the food, but the meal picked Blair up quite a bit. His heart slowed down and he stopped smelling like intense physical distress. He didn't talk much, but he met my eyes frequently and he passed me small smiles, letting me know that his silence wasn't because he was angry at me or had given up, but only that there was nothing he could say in front of Connor.

When we were sure she was asleep I told him Alex had found the temple.

"How do you know?"

"I saw it."

"Man, that's incredible." His excitement faded. "How are you feeling about Alex?"

"I know I need to stop her, but I also feel like I have to protect her somehow."

"Which one is stronger?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you need something that you can focus on -- something you can control -- because what happened at the riverbank today cannot happen again, Jim." He looked at me hard, and I looked away. Did he think I didn't want to? Did he think I wanted to throw away my friends, my career, everything I believed in because I was having hot dreams and getting lost in some inner jungle? Blair sighed. "You have got to get on top of this; she is dangerous. Look, I read her file. She was seriously antisocial before all of this, and then she came on line _in prison_. She was way beyond help long before she met either of us."

I thought about that--coming on line had been hard enough when it was just me, by myself on a nice, quiet stake-out. And I had found Blair in just a few days, someone who had a name for what was happening to me, who knew how to cope with it, who would teach me how to use it. And then, to do it in prison. I had been in prison. I knew the kinds of things a sentinel would hear there, would smell there. It would have been a ceaseless torment of other people's suffering.

And now she had nerve gas. And she was running scared.

And no, no. Feeling sorry for her wasn't going to help me at all. It wasn't going to stop anything. She was the enemy. I might have to kill her to stop her. And I damn well better be ready to do that, because she wouldn't hesitate to kill to meet her goals. She had taken out her partner and had tried to drown her teacher. Sooner or later, surely she would turn on me too.

I kept telling myself that, trying to ignore the fact that I didn't believe it.

I tried not to fall asleep: it would only be another blue dream to bind me more tightly to Alex. But when I woke in that other world...she wasn't there. She must have moved to some other 'place', because the jungle was quiet and calm. Slowly, I wandered among the trees, vaguely aware that I was searching for something. I knew this place. It was a thousand miles further south, in Peru. When Incacha stepped into the clearing, I wasn't surprised to see him.

* * *

I woke just as the sky was lightening. The fire still burned, showing that someone had been awake not long ago, but Blair and Connor were both asleep. I stood up silently, and looked at them. I was afraid to leave Blair, and not only because I didn't know how I was going to keep a grip on myself without him. But Connor was armed and no idiot and she would take care of him. I had no excuse to disobey Incacha...and maybe I wouldn't have anyway. As much as I hated this spiritual hocus pocus, every time I tried to fight it things just got worse and the people I loved suffered. Incacha said to leave them, so I would.

I slipped out of the tiny clearing and headed north-west at a jog.

* * *

The temple, when I saw it, took my breath away. It was like walking into a dream. I drew my gun. Alex was here, and she must have heard me coming. She'd be waiting. She was armed. She might not want to kill me, but she was still dangerous--

The prick at my neck made me realize that I had somehow underestimated her yet again. The tiny wound didn't hurt as much as it should. It spread a coldness into my shoulders, down my arms. As I fell, I tried to fight. My limbs were like lead and I couldn't concentrate. The stone floor was hard and cool and rough, and my hand wouldn't push against it.

When I woke it was to a slight coolness and a muting of sound. I couldn't hear the air in the trees or the insects or any birds. The room was dim, and before I could turn my head to look around it, Alex stepped into my field of view. "It's no use trying to move," she said. "The drug on the dart is still in your system." I was mostly naked and in water and too weak to even lift an arm. She seemed calm, almost happy. She was way too cheerful for someone running from so many enemies, who had done so much violence. She held up a cup which she said contained a drink made from local plants--It would grant the secrets of life, had shown her her 'true being.'

The idea was horrifying. The visions we were both having weren't bad enough for her, she had to go around playing with local hallucinogens? Hell. She meant to give that crap to me, and the thought filled me with terror. I was totally out of my mind as it was. On the best of days, my control over my senses was a fragile thing, and when they got away from me....No. No. My arguments were a helpless whisper. She thought this was a perfectly natural, reasonable thing to do, to give me this poison and cut me loose in my own head. If I could have moved, I would have struggled, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even squeeze my jaw shut as she gently opened my mouth and drizzled some of the thick, grainy liquid into it.

It slid down my throat, and I swallowed. Maybe...it wouldn't work. Alex couldn't have read the walls, not really. Alex must have imagined it all.

I flushed hot, and the water was suddenly like ice around me. I went cold, and the water boiled. I tried a deep breath, hoping to ride it out, but my breath came in shallow, uneven pants. Maybe the drink was just poisonous, maybe I would just die. The cold of the water faded away to nothing. I couldn't see in the dim room or smell the molding stone. What closed around me was like a blue dream, but bigger and realer. There wasn't any jungle, this time.

It was my life, in bits and pieces around me, memories sliding by like water down a drain. The stakeout, waiting for the switchman--and the old mill going up in a ball of fire. The night my father came home late, again, without calling, again, and mom and dad had had a huge fight which had ended with her throwing her burnt roast on the floor and walking out. Finding Bud. Watching that red laser site glow on Danny's back and watching him go down. Lila. The bodies of my men. The worry when Jack Pendergrast disappeared, and the hopelessness that grew as days passed without a trace.

I didn't want to do this, not this. Please.

But it kept going. Every bad decision. Every petty revenge. Every betrayal. I had been too worried about a football game to keep track of Bud. I had slept with Jack's girlfriend. I had blamed Stevie for not being able to cope with dad.

I had lived, when my men had died.....

I had fucked up the sentinel thing. I'd been given a choice, I'd accepted that responsibility, but again and again I'd run from my senses, denied them, given in to fear.

And all of it, my whole life, every failure every mistake, was bound up in violence and death--I screamed, or tried to scream or thought I screamed. But there were no echoes and Blair didn't come, so I must have made no sound after all.

It got worse. My life played out over and over again, an endless parade of death and pain. Destroyed buildings, destroyed bodies. Destroyed lives--again and again I saw Veronica Sarris, holding a gun on a bus full of people because of me. The village of Panwi, an insurgent outpost...we had leveled it, left it burning. Everywhere I had been, everything I had touched--

And then I began to see things that hadn't happened yet. I saw Simon, shot and bleeding, not two feet from me. I saw Megan, covered in blood. I saw an empty crib, and a woman crying: it would happen because I wasn't careful enough. I saw Blair and Daryl, held at gun point.

No. Incacha, help me.

To my amazement, Incacha came. He looked at me with the same affection and admiration that Blair so often showed, despite the fact that he had died in my arms, bleeding out from a wound I should have protected him from. The fractured blue dream stilled around him, and he talked to me. I don't know what I'd hoped for--that he would make it stop, or tell me it wasn't true or comfort me somehow. But in life, Incacha had never protected me from things I didn't want to hear, and he didn't soften things now. He told me to face my fears and sent me to finish the dream.

I tried. Light, he'd said. Light. But I didn't see any. Dark, there was plenty of. There was more death, and more pain, and more fire. I saw myself sinking in a vat of crude oil, screaming for help, reaching for Blair, but he slipped out of my hands. I saw Blair, wet and dead on the grass, leaving me just as Danny had left me, my men had left me, Incacha had left me.

Blair--death, pain, violence, and hate didn't follow him everywhere. Blair understood about compassion and forgiving and listening. But that was Blair. _He_ was the one who understood about light. The only light that ever came from me was from the burning I caused, the fire and death and destruction--

No. No. No. Bullshit. That was not all there was. It was sure as hell not all there was going to be. I stared back at the dark dream around me and rejected it: no. This is not me. I could learn compassion, damn it. Had learned it---

This was not me.

I awoke to stillness, the stone chamber brightly visible and very calm. Over. It was over. I sat up slowly. Each drop of water that fell from my skin echoed its splash a dozen times around the small room. I could see each shadowed corner clearly. I could see the water evaporating from the surface of the pool.

I got to my feet, careful but steady. My clothes were piled on the floor, and I wiped my face on my shirt before dressing. My eyes...kept straying to the second pool, where Alex stared blankly at the ceiling. I wondered what her visions were like.

She smelled...off. Wrong. It was the drug in her system. She had made herself helpless, confident of her control over me, confident that I would not, for example, nudge her head sideways and leave her to drown the way she had left Blair. Or--no. Maybe not confident at all, only so far gone that she couldn't quite grasp things like consequences and anger.

She didn't have me now, though. I knew that. I had no...desire for her at all. It had felt real. God knows, the hard-ons had been real. But it was all gone, and all that was left was the pity I'd been feeling, the mercy for my enemy. How strange, to realize that the compassion had been me all along.

I wondered if there were anything that could ever make her 'right' again.

I heard voices below, speaking Spanish. Six people in all, two of them I easily tagged as Blair and Connor. The others must be Arguillo and his men, tracking Alex, too.

I retrieved my gun and slipped into a corner I knew would be in black shadow to someone coming in from the light. I slowed my breathing and let myself fall to stillness. I would end this here.

Arguillo sent first two men, then one more. It wasn't difficult. They were only enthusiastic amateurs, while I was a professional who knew a dozen and a half ways to kill a man with my bare hands. And I smiled at that, because here, in this temple, knowing those things wasn't a darkness. It was just a way of stopping the darkness.

Arguillo finally had to come up himself. He brought Blair and Connor with him and made them kneel on the floor before him. I took him down before he had any idea where I was. I reached for Blair's ropes. "Are you ok?" But he smelled fine. Relieved and pleased and tired.

I was still trying to get the knots when Alex came out of the dream. Damn. I had really, really wanted to let Blair handle her. Or at least have time to get his advice. But Alex was already sitting up, water running down her face, her eyes hungry and not quite sane. "I'm home," she said. "I can feel the vibrations of the earth itself. I can hear the clouds moving in the sky. I can see the molecules in a drop of water. I want to share this with you." The blue dream shimmered around her as she tried to reach me.

I got between her and Blair, at the same time closing her out of my dream. No, Alex. Not this time. "This isn't home. It's time to go now."

I could smell her disappointment, her pain at my rejection. "You need to see as I see," she said, and picked up one of the canisters of nerve gas.

Damn. This answered any questions I might have had about what the visions had done for her. "Put that down," I said.

"Are you afraid?"

Of pretty much everything, apparently. But my fear didn't seem very powerful right then. "If you open that up, we all die. Now, put it down."

"Once I've cleansed the world and you've left your flesh behind, maybe then you'll understand what I've seen."

"Alex, this isn't the way of a sentinel. We watch over and protect people." But looking into her eyes, I knew that talking to her wouldn't work. Reason or kindness or threats wouldn't reach her, and I wasn't going to be fast enough to stop her physically

"There's so much you don't know. But you will."

Right. The dead know everything. It wasn't a price I wanted to pay. "Alex, look at me. Look at me! This isn't you. This isn't the real you. That lies deep within you. Listen to that voice deep inside of you and let it guide you." But it wasn't working, wouldn't work. The blue dream that had been plaguing me for so many days was still hovering just out of sight, though. I could almost see it. I leaned toward it, calling to Alex across the dream as I said, "You wanted to unite our vision. Let's do it together. Give me your hand. Come on."

She stepped toward me, holding out her hand and as she touched me, the vision opened up again. This time it wasn't a bewildering plunge into her fantasy. It was my dream, and my soul directed us. I pulled her toward me, seeing the hunger in her heart, the need, the madness that couldn't be defeated by violence but could be countered by something else.

She kissed me, there in the dream, and I thought for a moment I had her. But I saw her own dream go red and rise up behind her, burning and collapsing on itself. Alex began to slide backwards, screaming, trying to pull me with her. "My skin--it's on fire! My ears!"

In my arms, in the temple, Alex stumbled and twisted. "What?" I called. "What?" The canister slid from her grasp and I caught it and set it down. Alex fell. I tried to catch her, but could only follow her down as she folded.

"Oh! My eyes!"

I couldn't feel what she was feeling, not physically, but her dream was an inferno now, and going small and thin. "Let me see. Wait, Alex." But I didn't know how to stop her, how to keep her in my dream, or repair hers, or pull her from the vision entirely. She whimpered with pain and fear, and I shushed her, trying to find some comfort.

"We were one," she cried softly.

"Alex, Breathe," I whispered, but she was already gone. There was no dream for her, now. Her mind had closed on itself. She didn't respond to my voice at all. I gently settled her on the floor and stumbled to my feet. Connor looked white and appalled, her eyes on the canister I had taken from Alex. Blair was looking at me, and I cringed as I knelt before him. "I'm--sorry," I whispered.

He leaned toward me, awkward because of his bound hands. "You tried. You tried. It wasn't your fault."

I opened my mouth, wanting to tell him the horror I'd seen inside Alex, wanting him to understand. There were no words, of course. No way to explain. My eyes burned with unshed tears.

Blair shushed gently, trying to ease closer on his knees. I caught him and turned him against me, supporting him with my body as I worked at the knots on his wrists. I got Blair free. Together we got Connor free. Connor took the ropes and went to work securing the prisoners, while Blair led me out into the sunlight at the temple door.

"What the hell happened? You look like hell! And what were you doing taking off like that? Are you some kind of slow learner? Jeeze!" I flinched backwards and the hissed diatribe stopped abruptly. "What happened here?"

"She--it was too much for her. She couldn't handle the input. I didn't know if it was because she did it twice or because she was so unstable...Blair, I tried to help her."

He laid a hand on my arm and moved closer. "You tried to help her," he repeated. "What did she do twice?"

"She found some kind of...recipe written on the walls, and she made it and drank it last night and again today..."

"A recipe for what?"

"I don't know. Some kind of hallucinogen? It was terrible. My God. That was a worse trip than the golden."

His head snapped around. "What?"

"It was...really bad."

"You drank some of it?"

"She....fed it to me."

Between one breath and the next, Blair suddenly reeked of panic. "How much? How much did she give you?"

"No, no it's ok. It's over. I've--I've gotten through it. It's over."

He checked my eyes and my pulse, and finally, still dissatisfied, sat me down on a tumbled stone and went inside to examine the leavings in the cup and the remnants of Alex's 'cooking.' While he was still inside, Connor came out looking deeply impressed. Of the five people in the cave, four were still unconscious, and one had a broken arm. We couldn't get them out, she said. There was no way any of them could manage a hike, and we couldn't carry two people each. We would have to wait for Simon. "I have a first aid kit," she said, nodding at the baggage Aguillio had left at the foot of the pyramid. "And I don't know about you, but I could do with some water."

So we tended our prisoners, moving them, as they were able, down out of the temple and into a small camp set up in the lee of a broken wall. All but Alex were conscious and complained loudly until Connor threatened to gag them if she heard another word. It might be a long wait.

Blair had taken the tiny, disposable camera he'd started carrying in his backpack in case of a police emergency and was using up all the film inside the temple. I stayed outside, sitting in the shade, but I could hear his movements, and every time he passed the doorway I could see him clearly. I would have expected, here in a temple of the sentinels, a place never seen by a western academic, that he would be ecstatic. This had to be a wonderful discovery for him, surely on a par with, say, me. But he moved slowly and heavily--interested and careful, but not happy.

When he finished the film, he came down the broken steps and slid the tiny camera into the pouch of his backpack lying at my feet.

"You knew about this," I said.

He shrugged. "There were rumors. Well, one rumor. I'm not really surprised, I guess."

"Why didn't you tell me? That this might be here?" It was immense. And real. And so, so old. I wondered if the people who had built it would recognize themselves in me.

"What, you mean aside from the fact that every time I tried to bring up sentinel theory you yawned and changed the subject?" He glanced around to make sure Megan was still with the prisoners. She was passing around the water bottle. "There wasn't any point in telling you about something like this when I wasn't sure. You had enough to worry about."

"You told Alex about it." That sounded more whiny then I'd planned but he didn't appear to take it personally.

" _She_ already knew about it. I mean, were you dreaming about it before she showed up?"

"Just once...."

"But--bang! She just plugged right into it, didn't she? Got a direct line. And somehow--I don't know how she did it, God knows nothing has been written about this and I can't _ask_ anybody--she passed it on to you." He sounded almost bitter.

"But--isn't this good?" I waved at the hill of stone before us. "This is evidence, right? More proof of the existence of sentinels. You can use this."

He sighed. "Yeah, I can use it. And I will learn all I can from it, Jim, I will. I just...."

"Just....what?"

He looked up at the step pyramid to the shadowed little room at the top, and then looked sadly at me. "These people had a _state_ , Jim. They were centralized. Organized. This is isn't a little grotto somewhere, this is major monumental public works here. This was a huge expense and a powerful symbol. And if the government was taking that much notice of sentinels, then they weren't exactly free agents."

"Oh. So..."

"So, given the kinds of visions Alex was having, and passing on to you...the priests were probably controlling them with mind altering drugs and breeding them like alpaca."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry. If I, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known for sure." He looked at the crumbling temple again and then took a deep breath and dug a small pad and pencil out of the backpack. "But just because it depresses me, doesn't mean there isn't something there I can use."

"Use?"

"Something I learn here might help you someday. Or people like her." He started back up the broken steps.

I watched him go, feeling very tired and very old. Not bad, exactly, but the clarity I'd had when I first came out of the pool was fading. For a moment, I'd been ready for anything, could have gotten over anything, could have faced any disaster. I sighed. In the distance, I could hear helicopters. I stood up and headed toward the temple to fetch Sandburg.

On the way home his energy finally gave out. Despite how much he hated helicopter travel, he fell asleep leaning against me. When we got back to the city, he fell asleep twice more while the federales and the American military were questioning us. The second time, I stopped mid-repeated answer and announced that I had had enough. I played obnoxious civilian/ugly American and collected my captain, Connor and Sandburg from their respective 'meeting' rooms and announced that we were going to a hotel for a hot bath and some food and anybody who didn't like it could go find a hobby.

Sandburg and I got a double room; there was no way I was letting him sit in a room alone. I sent him ahead and stopped in the gift shop for some bottled water and a couple of T-shirts. Neither of us had any clean laundry by then. When I got to the room, he was already in the shower, so I put in a call for room service and sat down on the bed.

He came out a ten minutes later, wearing only a towel. There was a bruise over his breastbone, small and dark in silent testimony of Simon's strength and precision. Blair saw where I was looking and glanced down. "Interesting week, huh?"

Before I answered, room service arrived. I unloaded the tray onto the table, making two places. Blair looked at the second place and shook his head. "Thanks. Not hungry, Jim."

"Soup," I said. "Eat." After a moment, he sat, but he ate only about half the chicken soup.

"Did you want something else?" I asked. I had ordered steak for myself, and it was already gone.

He shook his head. I got up and stood over him, bending my head to scent him. Strange soap, his own shampoo. Tired. Not enough food, not enough water. No sickness, though. No distress.

He looked up at me and smiled just a little. I realized I'd been waiting for that. "Blair--it--it wasn't your fault. You did the best you could."

"I could have done better."

"Not with what you knew."

"Neither could you." He sighed. "You ok?"

I nodded. I wasn't, actually, completely sure I knew where my head was, but I was fairly sure it wasn't off in the stratosphere getting instructions from someone else. Blue dreams hadn't hovered at the edge of my vision since Alex had shut down. I was out of her dreams and mine too, back in the real world again.

"Why don't you go wash?" He smiled a little. "You smell pretty ripe. I don't know how you're standing yourself."

I stayed in the bathroom for a long time, washing myself and then cleaning some of our laundry in the sink and letting it dry on the shower curtain rod. When I came out, Blair was lying on his side, facing the bathroom. His eyes opened a little as I walked past, and he said softly, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Shame twisted inside me and I looked away. "We've talked about this. I didn't want anybody near me, and then...I was afraid."

"I don't mean about Alex. I mean, why didn't you tell me you were in love with me?"

My head snapped up. Blair hadn't moved, but he was looking at me curiously, sadly. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"It didn't feel new," he said in that same soft voice.

And I remembered that crystal moment when Blair and I passed through each other. That moment he remembered, that he had _told_ me he remembered, but I hadn't thought it through. "I didn't...I didn't know how to handle it."

"Handle it? It was that bad? Being in love with me?"

"No, I--it. Look, there was the whole guy thing! I mean, I'd never even thought about--"

I stopped because he was watching me with wide, sad eyes. "Yeah. I can see where that would be too awful to even think about."

"No--Blair, it wasn't. I didn't." I stepped closer. "It wasn't bad. Blair, please don't."

"Don't what?" He waited, and when I didn't answer, asked, "How do you feel about me? Can you tell me now?"

"I don't know how I feel about anything now. I haven't--it's been so long since I had a clear thought, Chief." What I had felt about Alex had seemed real. The paranoid fury in Cascade had felt real. Looking back, I wasn't sure how much of anything in the past two weeks was me. I couldn't even name the date things had last felt 'normal.' "Please. Please, let's not do this now."

"Right. Right. Let's not do this now." He closed his eyes and turned his face to the pillow.

The next morning he was awake before I was. I opened my eyes to see him standing at the window, peeking past the edge of the curtain to the city below. "You ok?" I asked, without thinking.

"Yeah."

"Sandburg...cut me a break here, ok? I just need a little time."

"I'm not angry at you, Jim."

"I just need a little time," I found myself pleading, even though it seemed to me that under the circumstances I wasn't asking for much. It wasn't as if I'd meant to hurt him or had acted irresponsibly or rejected him. Not really. Not when I was myself, whoever that was.

He turned around. "That's....probably a good idea. Time is good. We've both...been through a lot lately."

So. He dressed. I dressed. We met Simon and Megan for breakfast, and then the authorities for more interviews. By nine o'clock that night we were on a plane home. Blair barely spoke to me except to make sure I was feeling ok and eating enough. I barely spoke to him--there was only one thing he wanted to talk about, and I wasn't ready to get into it.

The plane trip was long and uncomfortable. Noise and tiny vibrations. Cold, dry air. The smells of about seventy people cramped into a tiny cabin. I swore I felt us run into a bird.

Sandburg laid a hand on my arm and whispered, "Close your eyes." I felt a wash of relief--it was such a normal, comfortable thing for Blair to do. "Forget about all this. Notice it and let it go, one part at a time....."

So I slept through that leg of the trip, which wasn't so bad. But customs had a wait and then we had a nine-hour weather delay in Dallas-Ft. Worth, before finally being rerouted through Atlanta. It was the next afternoon before we touched down in Cascade.

As the four of us stood around in baggage claim waiting for our checked luggage, Simon roused himself from his exhausted stupor and said, "People, I don't say this often enough to be good at it--hell, I probably don't say it often enough, period. But what you did down there was incredible work. Each one of you did more than anybody had a right to expect or demand, and I'm proud of you."

Blair stared, stunned. Connor turned red and stumbled, the first time I had seen her do it. I just shrugged. I couldn't thank Simon for backing us up, for going so far out on a limb for this--it would imply that the possibility that he might not do his job had crossed my mind. But someone had to say something. I settled on "Let's not do it again, Sir?" just before the conveyor started.

Simon had left his car in long term parking. He dropped Connor first, then Sandburg and me. Just inside the door I stopped. There were boxes everywhere. The place was a disaster. Blair took his bags to his room, then slowly came back, looking around.

"There's more in the basement," I said. "Your stuff...I asked Joel and Megan. It should all be here."

"Looks like it," he said tentatively. "Jim, I don't want you to worry about this."

I turned away. "Don't try to tell me this was a healthy reaction."

"Well, um, no. No. But you were dealing with some pretty heavy shit all by yourself. You were in trouble--Cascade was in trouble. Things just got a little out of hand....that's all."

"Should have told you," I murmured.

"And I should have pushed. We screwed up." He stopped, rubbing his hands together restlessly. I realized that he wanted to be touching me. But no, too much was still not right between us for that. "But. We're still here. Some pretty horrible shit could have happened, but it didn't, and now we...we actually get to go on. I guess this isn't very helpful...."

"It did."

"What?" he asked.

"Some pretty horrible shit did happen."

"We were lucky," he said gently, coming closer. I wanted him to touch me, but he couldn't now, I understood that. How would we know what it meant?

"There's no such thing as luck," I said bitterly. But I'd thought there was no such thing as mercy either.

"What do you want me to say, here, Jim? I'm trying. I really am."

"I just need a little time."

"Ok....Ok."

Sandburg was still pretty tired, even though he'd slept on the plane. He took a shower and disappeared off to bed. I stood over by the window, listening, as afternoon turned into evening. Just listening. Cars, trucks, people walking. A party two buildings over, loud music, dancing. A busted water line over on Vine St; water spewing out and causing a small traffic back-up. A dog fight somewhere to the south, not far. Normal sounds. A normal evening turning toward a normal night. This was what my city sounded like.

After a while I went over to his door, listening there too. Sandburg was asleep. I knew what he wanted from me. He wanted me to say that I loved him, that I wasn't afraid, that I trusted him, that the fact that we were both guys wasn't more important to me than he was himself, that--

That what? What else? Surely there was more. I didn't know what it was. Or maybe, I did, but I wasn't ready to decide how I would face it, or if I could.

I wasn't sleepy. Tired, yes, a little. I wouldn't sleep, certainly not on my mattress lying by itself on the loft floor. I went down and started bringing stuff up from the basement.

When Sandburg came out at about six the next morning, I was crouched behind the television, trying to figure out how to attach the VCR.

"Something you want to talk about?" he asked, stepping around a box of pots and pans.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Yeah, I see that. You could have asked for help."

"You were sleeping. And anyway...."

He waited, not quite looking at me, but pushing me to talk all the same.

"I just wanted everything to be the way it was before," I said, finally.

He looked up. "Is that what you want? For things to be the way they were before?"

It took a second for me to understand what he was asking. "No, I just," I stumbled, "I didn't mean.... I just--"

"You just want your home back?" he suggested gently.

"Yeah!"

"Jim, you need to think about something. It's kind of important. You need to decide if you want me here, or if you'd like a little more space and me to be....someplace else."

The only thing that kept me from freaking was that I could smell how much this offer was costing him. He didn't want to leave, even if he sounded gentle and calm about it. "No," I managed. No! My teacher. My best friend. No matter what happened between us in the future, I didn't want him gone. I had tasted my life without him. I took a deep breath. "I want my home the way it was before I lost my mind." I thought for a moment and added, "Please stay."

He smiled, as though he'd heard everything I hadn't said, "Ok." He looked around. "Let's grab some breakfast and then I'll help you bring the couches up."

It was Friday. Simon had given us off until Monday. Sandburg and I spent most of the weekend sleeping and putting the house back together. Monday morning, I dropped him at the University--his car was still there, and he had some work to do, anyway. He would meet me for lunch right after his doctor's appointment, and we planned to go back to the PD.

He called at 11:30 to cancel lunch. "I can't, Jim. No time. I am totally screwed."

"What did the doctor say?" It sounded more anxious than I wanted, but Sandburg didn't seem to notice.

"Nothing. I canceled. I'm teaching. Tomorrow. Don't ask, man. Don't even ask. I am totally screwed."

When I got home the living room, which had finally gotten spotless and organized, was covered with photos of artifacts.

"So what's up?" I asked.

"Minnie was supposed to teach survey of New World archaeology for inter-session. She got hit by a car on Saturday. But since we're already a week into spring inter-session, they didn't want to cancel. Some of the seniors were counting on it for a summer graduation date."

"So they gave it to you?"

He gestured at the scattering of pictures.

"I don't understand. I thought classes were over."

"Inter-session. It's brutal, man. Four weeks, with class for three hours a day, four days a week. I swore I would never do it."

"Why are you?"

"I didn't get my end of term paperwork in on time. Or at all. The computer copy of my grades, yeah, but not the signed official paper copy. Or my e-12."

"So you're in trouble."

"Well, no. At the time of the non-event, I was recovering from an assault that took place on university property. So nobody is going to say anything about it. But unofficially...according to my div chair, pitching in here would look very good."

"Mandatory sucking up," I said. I picked up a picture of ugly, broken pottery. "Are you qualified for this?"

He paused and looked up. "Nobody more qualified who is still in town, desperate enough for the money or in a position to be blackmailed." He smiled slightly. "Actually, yeah. I can do it. If I really haul ass. The sentinel thing has made me very ....eclectic. I started out looking at cross-cultural mythology, trying to find evidence of sentinels."

"Oh," I said, wondering if he had told me this before and I just hadn't paid attention. "Were there?"

He shrugged. "Nothing conclusive. Two from Africa, a weird genre of Slavic fairy tale, six from South America, and one from New Guinea that you _don't_ want to know about."

"Why?"

He sighed. "You know how Burton talked about isolation being used to evoke and nurture heightened senses? Well, if the story from the Ekka Valley is true, those people also used pain. Right. I told you, you didn't want to know. Anyway, with all that, I can probably teach every undergraduate anthro course at Rainier except South-east Asia, cold-adapted peoples, and survey of Old World archaeology. If we offered osteology, I couldn't teach that, but it doesn't count because we farm that out to biology."

So. For the next couple of weeks, I barely saw Sandburg at all. He didn't come to the station, he didn't hang out much at home. Most of the time, as far as I could gather, he was only about two days ahead of the syllabus. I did see him at dinner, most nights. I got the feeling that he was very carefully reserving this time, giving me the opportunity to _talk._ But I still didn't know what to say.

 _Did_ I love him? Yes. Before Alex and after Alex, I was sure of that. I even knew that during Alex. But what did it mean? Did I want to be--well, yuck, not his wife, obviously. His....spouse? His partner. Together. Yes, that, whatever it was, I wanted to be that. I wanted to live happily ever after, minus the house in the suburbs and the minivan. I wanted forever. I wanted exclusive. I wanted till death do us part. Didn't I? Or was this just that weird, romantic, unrealistic streak I had, the one that made me think Carolyn and I were made for each other? And even if I did want forever, did Blair? Was that the life he imagined for himself? Did he know how to be settled and domestic?

And, if he did--what then? Married couples had married friends. They did couples things with them. But the minute I told any of my friends about Sandburg and me, they would look at us differently. Me differently. And, no, no, I wasn't ashamed. But I didn't know how to be that different guy.

There would also be the family thing. I was sure Naomi was cool about Blair's sexual identity, but she would have a fit if she found out one of those 'jack-booted thugs' was her...in-law. In my family Stephen would be fine with it. Heck, he might even be thrilled, because I thought that, deep down, he resented Blair a little as some kind of surrogate brother-replacement. Dad, though--

God, Dad had taken twenty years to come to grips with me being a freak. How the hell was he going to cope with me being queer, too? Mind you, 'because Dad would think it was a bad idea,' was still a pretty good reason to do something in my book....

In a way, of course, all of this didn't matter much. We couldn't be publicly together. I couldn't be openly out. Not as a cop. This wasn't California. To put it kindly, there was a lot of ambivalence about what it meant to be a 'real' man. Even if I were willing to take that risk for myself, I couldn't take it for Blair. I wasn't any more willing to risk him now than I was that day in the hospital after visiting Joel.

Blair wanted to talk, and all I had for him was a long string of non-answers. I wanted to put off sorting through it as long as I could. As long as we hadn't decided anything, there was still....hope? Or if not hope, at least a few more days of normal.

I barely saw him at the station. Simon sent me out with Megan or Joel. Neither one of them was Sandburg, and Joel didn't even know about the sentinel thing, but all I really needed at that point was someone to keep me talking while I worked. I tended to prefer Joel, actually. Besides the fact that I didn't really like Megan any better despite the fact that I was now in her debt on multiple levels, she found the whole sentinel thing very cool, and kept asking questions. And here I'd thought she'd been a pest about the psychic thing.

Imagine my surprise when Sandburg finally did show up at the bullpen on a Friday afternoon. I found him at my desk running a background check on one of his students. I'd barely seen him for a couple of weeks by that point. He spent even weekends in the library previewing video of archeological sites or researching his impossibly long lectures. When I did see him, in the evenings at dinner, he smiled politely but was ripe with impatience. I supposed the waiting was getting to him. Well, given my recent history, I could see why he might be worried about what I was thinking.

He didn't make it home for dinner that night. Which was fine with me, actually. I was working on a complicated murder case, and I'd been dreading yet another tense evening of Blair politely _waiting_ for me to say whatever it was I was eventually going to say which would screw up our lives. He got home at about ten, tired and grumpy and "Not hungry. Thanks."

Fine. Hey, whatever.

The next morning I got up early and headed over to the station to see if forensics had managed to uncover anything useful during the night. It was Saturday, though, so I wasn't expecting much, and 'not much' was about what I got. We still didn't have a solid lead.

I killed a few hours at the station, took the truck out for an oil change, and stopped by the store. I didn't think I was looking for excuses not to go home; I was fairly sure Sandburg would be at the library again today.

There were no parking places on Prospect, so I went around the block and pulled into the small lot on King Avenue. I had just started down the street when I heard the fight. Two thugs had gotten the drop on Sandburg. One of them had a bat.

I tore into them, not just trying to bring them down, but angry, furious. I put myself between Blair and his attackers and started to take them apart. I relieved them of the bat and knocked them both down. The first one bounced back up and leaped for me. I slammed him into the pavement. Before things could go any further, a third man, holding a gun, stepped out of the car, and he covered the others while they fled.

For a moment, watching the car peel out, I thought I would explode. What the hell was going on? There wasn't any explanation. Sandburg wasn't even working with the department right then. He wasn't doing _anything_ but that damn class. So how the hell did he manage to get the crap beaten out of him by a couple of cheap thugs?

Aw, God. Terror reared up and threatened to choke me. If I hadn't shown up, they would have kept at it. I knew what a baseball bat could do to ribs, to knees, to skulls--

Damn it, Sandburg! How the hell did he get involved in this crap? I turned back to him, queasy with the smell of his blood. Blood and pain and fury, but not, thank God, shock. I crouched beside him as he struggled to sit up. "Chief, you all right? Let me see. Let me see." His face was bleeding, but his eye was undamaged. "All right, let's get you cleaned up. Come on."

I could feel the heat of rising bruises. He leaned against me for a moment, trembling, panting, angry. Then, cursing, he pushed me away.

My feelings whirled and collided. I shoved them down, and went to the fallen groceries, looking for something cold. I hadn't expected gratitude, but he looked only angry and a little ashamed, and not at all glad to see me.

"Peas?" he said.

"Yeah, it was the only thing I had that was frozen. Maybe it'll help cool off your love life."

Blair didn't think that was funny. He promptly erupted, the scent of anger washing out even pain. "Cool off my love life? What are you talking about? This wasn't a jealous boyfriend, Jim! It wasn't even a mugger. It was that Brad Ventriss. He saw me talking to Jill yesterday -- the girl that he raped."

Who? The college student again? I was supposed to believe some kid was responsible for this? And if it was him, what the hell was Blair doing messing around with that kind of trouble? I tried to pull in my anger and talk to him reasonably--after all, he was hurt, he'd had a scare. It was only natural that he might be a little....overwrought.

But he didn't respond to appeals to be reasonable. I didn't have a lot of practice being the calm one--I'd only seen Blair lose perspective like this once or twice in more than three years. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even remember what he always said to me when I would go off half-cocked.

Before our discussion could degenerate into an actual argument, one of the witnesses in the Chung case called. I took Sandburg with me even though he protested that he didn't have time. If he couldn't walk down the street without falling victim to felonious assault, I sure as hell couldn't leave him alone for the whole afternoon.

Chung's girlfriend had some film for us--pictures he had taken while working on his last case. One of his surveillance shots was of Sandburg's "nightmare student." Naturally, Sandburg would pick a punk who played around in industrial espionage and murder for an enemy. Blair told us, carefully, everything he knew about this guy Ventriss. Then we picked him up to have a little chat.

We pretty much chased our collective tail for the rest of the weekend. Blair was right about Ventriss, of that I had no doubt, but we were a long way from proving it. Our best potential witness (or accomplice) fled the country. The parents of Ventriss and his girlfriend wouldn't hear a word against their little darlings. Sandburg was impatient and short tempered and nothing I said or did put a dent in the mad he was on.

We talked to everyone we could think of who might somehow be connected to the case, but finally there was no one left to interview and we headed for home. I offered Blair a trip to the library--there was no way I would let him go alone with Ventriss siccing hired muscle on him, but I couldn't forbid him to go and I didn't have any plans for the evening.

"Thanks, Jim, but the library closes at five on Sundays after the regular term."

"Oh. Well, then. How 'bout some dinner?"

"No thanks, I, um, I have some grading. Most of the class submitted papers that weren't plagiarized. Probably." He scowled.

I sighed. "Look, Sandburg. Let it go. It's darkening your aura." He smiled slightly at that, and heartened, I added, "It's just a paper."

The scowl was back. "Right, Jim. It was just a paper."

Oh, hell. "Look, wait, I just--I don't want anything to happen. You've got this, this _murderer_ fixated on you. He's dangerous. And I--Blair, you're not being careful, you aren't paying attention. This has got you so crazy, and I, I--" I stopped, unsure how to go on.

He sighed, suddenly less angry than tired. "Right. I'm crazy. Thank you."

"I care--what happens to you!"

"You care what happens to me." He sighed again. "You care so damn much I had to be brought back from the _dead_ to find about it."

I flinched, uncertain and hurt. "You know, Chief, I don't have a psych minor, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't fair."

"No," he said, stiffly. "It wasn't. I apologize." He gathered up his backpack and headed for his room.

It was Monday afternoon before we got our first solid break; the search of Suzanne Nadine's apartment turned up evidence linking her directly to the Chang murder. That was the good news. The bad news was that Sandburg got fired by the university. I had done some research into academic integrity policies and procedures. From what Blair had told us, we had a pretty good case, even if the grad student who wrote the paper in question didn't step up and admit he'd been blackmailed into cheating for the little shit. But it would be a hairy mess, time consuming and expensive and a huge embarrassment for the university--which they might well try to take out on Blair.

Well. We would have to deal with all that later. Simon had decided we had enough at last to get arrest warrants for Suzanne Nadine and Brad Ventriss. Blair was delighted. Our suspects had big-time resources and were pouring the heat on both Blair and the department. This was going to be touchy, and we knew it. We went to bring them in, carefully and politely, following the rules and using every procedure--and they still nearly got away from us, slipping out the back in a helicopter and then switching to a small boat hidden in an inlet just off the bay.

I didn't want to open fire on that boat, but the only other option was boarding it like some kind of postmodern pirate in a bad B movie. I knocked Ventriss overboard and took care of Nadine and the craft's pilot. I turned the boat, heading back to collect Ventriss, expecting another fight, even if he was badly out-matched. He wasn't alone in the water. Sandburg was right there, beaming as though he had caught a ten pound bass and not a wanted felon.

Silently, I headed back toward shore, letting Sandburg secure the three prisoners with my cuffs and some rope lying on the deck. He passed me an occasional, satisfied smile. I clamped my teeth shut and said nothing. There was no way I was loosing my temper or chewing Sandburg out in front of these assholes.

When we reached dry land, we handed the three over to Simon and Joel. The further away Blair and I were from the official arrest, the more pristine the case. Nothing about this was supposed to be personal. I made a brief verbal report to Simon, reclaimed my cuffs, and waited until Blair had wrapped himself in an old wool blanket Joel produced from the trunk of his car before leading him aside and saying very softly, "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

He blinked at me in confusion, his satisfaction fading for the first time.

"Jumping into the bay," I snapped. "What were you doing?"

"Pursuing our suspect?" he suggested with exaggerated patience.

"That was not _our_ suspect! _You_ are not a cop!"

He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter. "Oh, come on, Jim, man--"

"That was not your job, and you had no business taking that kind of risk!"

"Are you kidding me? Jim, I do this kind of stuff with you all the time. I'm not just going to let a murderer--"

"This had nothing to do with your work with me. You didn't give a damn that he was a murderer. You were just pissed because he cheated in class--"

"He also raped a student--"

"I don't know what's the matter with you lately! You used to have some perspective, a little common sense, some fucking self-preservation, although I admit not much! But all of a sudden all that matters to you is some student cheating in a class you didn't even want in the first place."

"That class is my job, Jim. Oops. Sorry. _Was_ my job. And what the hell else am I supposed to care about? It isn't like I have a social life these days."

"So--what? What has that got to do with it? Is that my fault?"

There was a moment of frozen silence, and then Blair leaned forward and whispered, "As a matter of fact, yes, it is. You were the one who asked for 'time,' Jim. I didn't need any time. I can't even _remember_ when I needed 'time.' But I guess that isn't good enough for you."

He started to turn away, and I lurched after him, grabbing at his arm. "No--Blair--"

He paused, but didn't turn back. "I understand, Jim. I do. You're processing. I just...don't know what to do, what you want me to say. I don't know what you want, and I'm afraid, maybe...Let's not do this, ok? I'm not in a good place right now."

Right. There was only one conversation he wanted to have, and I still wasn't ready to have it.

Joel was waiting to give us a lift back to the truck, which was still at the Ventriss estate. He shot Sandburg a sympathetic look, no doubt assuming the argument had been over the case or that leap into the bay. None of us spoke on the way.

Things did improve after that. Well, they could hardly have gotten worse.... Ms. Nadine broke and ratted out her partner and both their parents. Of course the fancy lawyers might bargain the kids down to manslaughter and the parents down to obstructing an investigation, but none of them were getting out of this clean. Blair got re-hired, with a grudging apology.

* * *

 _There's no sense in both of us missing the game. I can follow this up on my own, I guess._

 _Oh, I don't know. I think I'd feel too guilty. I couldn't do that.... But if you insist._

* * *

Blair did a very good job of pretending nothing was wrong. Over the next couple of days he gave his final, came to the station, did poker night with the guys, played in the public service basketball game against the Jags. He smiled in all the right places, shot me no dirty looks. And if he was hurt or impatient or pissed as hell over my hesitation, nobody could smell it but me. He managed to be polite, calm, and scrupulously fair.

While I was trying to get a clue about my love life, Garret Kincaid gave himself an early parole. It wasn't our case--the state police and the feds had jurisdiction and we were politely asked not to meddle in 'their' investigation. Uh, huh. Right.

The CPD's Major Crime Unit knew Kincaid pretty well, and it was obvious to us that he wasn't just going to take off and hide somewhere. He was going to pull something nasty and public, probably here, close to home. It was only a matter of time, and not much of that. Although the case was unofficial, we all spent as much time as we could on it.

Even so, by the time I figured out that he was after the Cascade Sports Arena, it was already too late. They were playing a game there--the last regular season basketball game this year. It was the last chance for a big event: the game was a sellout, fifteen thousand people and it was televised. And Kincaid had at least one inside man.

Shit. This might be a slaughter.

And Blair was there. And Simon. And Daryl. I called for help, every available unit to the arena. I tried calling arena security. I tried calling Blair's cell. I got the state police, but they were completely clueless, kept asking me questions....

Shit.

It was a zoo: black and whites, SWAT, fire, medical, and oh, lord, the press. I kept telling myself to relax. There were thousands of people in that arena. Kincaid would never know Blair was there. He would never notice Simon in that crowd, or Daryl....

It hadn't been a lie, what I'd said about Blair having nightmares about the last time. Every six months or so, he recounted some horror at breakfast, shuddering theatrically and laughing it off, even though more often than not I'd heard him wake during the night, smelled the sharp scent of his fear. Me? I wasn't nearly cool enough about my nightmares to talk about them, let alone do a quick amateur analysis. I didn't want to remember. Despite my efforts to forget, though, I had pictures in my head of walking in to find three-fourths of the support staff, Daryl, and Joel lying in an ocean of blood, shot in the back, dead, every one of them....

Kincaid would kill those people. Not to make a statement or anything, but for money, or to cover his escape. He would kill them if he could use it. He had no compassion, no morals, no interest in anyone but himself.

I was rational and calm; I knew we had the place surrounded, I knew Blair would be nowhere near Kincaid, I knew that the maniac would never play with mass destruction while _he_ was still in the building...I was also desperate. I took the first chance to go in that presented itself.

The crowd was quiet, but the air handler set up a misery of white noise. Fortunately, I had had a chance to read those blueprints. I knew what Kincaid knew. And I knew his voice. When he turned the crowd loose, the noise swamped almost everything else. I could feel the vibrations of all those feet in the walls and floor. But a group of armed men, far away from everyone else, the smell of them--that was easy to track.

But it wasn't just the Sunset Patriots that was heading down through the lower levels--they had hostages, one of the teams, apparently. And Simon and Daryl and Blair.

Shit. Shit.

I got them all back. Barely. For what we did next, Simon and I got reamed out by the chief of police, the mayor, and three feds playing tag-team. And they were right. It was stupid and dangerous, and could have gotten nearly a dozen civilians killed, including a minor. The press loved it: "Jags Catch Terrorists" headlined on papers across the company, but as was pointed out to us repeatedly, it is not popular opinion which sets policy. What the hell had we thought we were doing? And God knew, they had a point.

But if we had lost Kincaid then, he would have come back sooner or later. After having had time to consolidate his position, more men, better equipment, bigger ideas. People would have died, maybe a lot of them. So we took the reamings and nodded politely.

* * *

 _Well, well, well. We said eight o'clock, James. It's seventeen past._

 _You're not pulling the Archer internal clock trick on me again, are you?_

 _I can still time a three-minute egg to the millisecond._

 _Remember that bar bet with that poor marine? Lost his month's pay._

 _I ordered you a Mexican beer in a frozen glass...._

 _You remembered that?_

 _Some things you don't forget._

* * *

I came home late from dinner with Allan and Veronica--I stayed until the guy from forensics had finished dusting the place for prints. A simple B & E, nothing taken. It wouldn't be high on the department's list. But I could see the place had been tossed pretty thoroughly, as well as vandalized a bit here and there. It worried me, and upset them; they were agitated, although they tried to hide it. It was two O'clock before I got home.

Blair was asleep when I got in. It kind of...disappointed me. It had been a long and weird night. Unsettling. I wanted to talk to somebody. There wasn't really anybody I could go to, not about this, certainly not to Simon or Stephen. But I couldn't have talked to Blair about this, anyway. So much of it was about him.

I kept thinking, sitting across from Allan Archer, how much I had changed since the last time I'd seen him. Ten years is a long time. I felt old and different, and I kept wondering, if he knew me now, would he recognize me at all? Would he like me?

Allan...I had admired him a lot. He was funny and smart. Confident. He was a better shot than I was, a better soldier....probably a better man. Nothing seemed to scare him or stop him, and he never looked back.

He had been my friend, and he didn't know me anymore. He didn't know how disgusted I'd been with the army when I left Peru, or that I was over it now. He didn't know about that little rush of relief and excitement whenever I realized a suspect was lying. Oh, hell. He didn't know about the senses. Or the visions. Or that I was, apparently, bisexual.

He didn't know that I was sitting across the table from him _noticing_ how beautiful his wife still was, or that I was somehow petty enough to still resent just a little--after ten years--the fact that she had loved him more than me. Instead of me.

They had gotten married while I was in Peru. Maybe the Red Cross had sent my invitation on to Dad with my other personal effects.

I paused coming out of the bathroom, looking at Blair's door. He coughed and shifted in his sleep. I missed him. There was no talking to him now, though, even if the conversation wasn't likely to start with 'well, there was this old girlfriend....' He was hurt that while I was capable of wanting him, did want him...I didn't seem to want him enough. He was waiting for my rejection, perhaps believing that I only delayed giving it to him because I needed him for these senses or because I was too much of a coward to face up to the ugly scene that might follow.

In my own generous, fair moments, I could see that he was going out of his way not to punish me. But he hadn't given me any warmth, either, not since Sierra Verde. I didn't know how to handle his impatience, and I didn't think I deserved it. It had barely been a month.

How could I ask for him when I didn't have a clue what I could give him in return, and when I had no guarantee that the kind of relationship I would need would be a kind he could have?

I went up to bed.

June was not a stellar month. IA had a bug up its butt about some missing cocaine or some loused up paperwork (the answer varied depending on who you talked to), and they were looking for blood. Some new guy from Chicago was looking to make a name for himself. Bad enough he hassled me and everyone else in Major Crime, but they also harassed Sandburg, even though he had never been near any of the items in question.

Allan and Veronica...were having problems. Both of them smelled nervous and unhappy. I tried looking into it for them, but Allan deeply resented my help and Veronica clearly wasn't completely forthcoming. Before I could sort it all out, Alan was dead, and Veronica was telling me things about him I didn't want to believe. She was lonely and sad, and I was starting to regret not even trying to pursue her ten years ago.

She didn't have to be in this mess. She didn't have to go through all that, be hurt this much. I could remember how much I had adored Veronica, the life I had wanted with her.

It hurt Blair, how much time I spent with her. I didn't blame him for that, but I couldn't leave her alone. She needed me. There was a lot going on. It wasn't my fault I didn't have time to process our relationship.

I reached the end of Blair's patience. He resented Veronica, he was angry about what he assumed I was doing with Veronica. "Ever thought about looking closer to home?" he said, petty enough to think that the woman could murder her husband just because he was getting in her way.

Or that's what I thought at the time. I told him that the explosive used on Allan's car was not something an amateur could use. "Forensics said the explosive was D-13. That's a linear-shaped charge used in demolition. It takes highly technical, precision knowledge to handle it, okay? Now, there goes your method."

"She could have had help."

I...I think you're the one who needs help. I'm going to bed. I'm tired."

"I'm sorry I brought it up."

"No, you're not," I muttered over my shoulder.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I paused. "You're just upset because I spent the afternoon helping her and not with you!"

"Yeah," he said softly. "I am. Today, and day before yesterday, and--"

I turned around. "Come on, Sandburg. What kind of relationship could we have? I'm pretty sure it's against the rules to sleep with a research subject."

I had meant it to be nasty, but he answered me seriously: "There haven't been any field notes on you in three months, Jim. When was the last time we tested anything?"

My mouth was suddenly dry. "Get bored?" I stumbled.

"Got plenty of data." He took a tentative step toward me, his eyes lighting just a little. "Never got bored."

I fled up the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard Blair head back out.

Four days later I was sitting on the other side of an interrogation table, a hair's breadth away from charges of murder, accessory to murder, conspiracy, insurance fraud, and whatever else Aldo could think of. By then, I knew that Veronica had been playing me. By then, it was too late.

The evidence mounted up. Two days later, I was on suspension. Blair didn't say a word. Not "I told you so," not "how could you?" not "I'm pissed at you." Not until I brought it up, and then only to tease me gently. Not even holding such terminal stupidity against me. Not making me pay for betraying him.

When I went to confront Veronica, I wore a wire and I left Blair outside with Simon. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't personal. I tried not to wrestle with whether she'd always been like this or if something had changed her. I tried not to wonder what could be so terrible it would change her into someone who could set up her own husband to be killed by a man who'd once been his best friend. What could make her hate that much? What was so frightening that she could be so desperate? What could she want so badly that this horrible web seemed like a good idea?

I never found out. She was shooting at me while Aldo was shooting at her. Both of them were pronounced dead at the scene, while I was left with blood soaking into my knees.

I waited outside while forensics and the coroner worked the scene. I was trying to listen to the sound of the waves of the bay hitting the shore. I was trying not to think. I was doing a lousy job.

A couple of hours later, when the crime scene people were finished, Simon and Blair came out to collect me. Blair saw that I wanted to be alone, and he obligingly bummed a ride from Simon, trying to distract him from looking too closely at me.

I listened to the shape of the lapping water until my legs were stiff and I was thoroughly cold. It was after two in the morning. At that hour, I had no place to go but home, even though I dreaded facing Blair. I headed up the hill.

I had to face him sooner than I thought. When I came around the house, he was sitting on the Archers' front porch, hunched into a ball on the floor beside the door. He looked up at me anxiously, squinting in the darkness.

"I thought you left with Simon," I said after a moment.

"Changed my mind. You know. It's out of his way and all."

"Thoughtful," I murmured. I couldn't get anything else out.

He stood up slowly and came down off the porch. He seemed nervous. Maybe he thought I'd be mad that he'd stayed, but I didn't know. I didn't know why anybody did anything.

He came up to me. "Want me to drive?"

Wordlessly, I handed him the keys and followed him to the truck. The streets were dark and quiet. I kept my head turned toward the passenger's side window. The occasional street light sent a flat spike of pain through my eyes, but I was too tired to try to adjust my response to light.

Blair found a parking spot across the street from the loft and pulled in. When he turned the ignition off, he paused for a moment, and then held out the keys. "Jim?"

He was sitting right there. Still. Even though he was hurt and pissed at me. Even though I had been acting like an idiot for nearly two months. I began to cry. Water poured silently down my face and I couldn't breathe. I had no idea how to stop it or hold it in or make it go away.

"Aw, God," Blair breathed. He turned sideways, sliding toward me on the bench. "Aw, Jim." He touched my arm, gently, and I leaned toward him. "You're shaking." His arms came around me. "Aw, Jim, she's not worth this. She was so wrong. She could have had _you_ and she--I know this isn't what you want to hear, but Jim--"

I was shaking my head, trying to speak, but only emitting a soft sob.

"God, Jim, I'm so sorry. It wasn't you, you've got to know that. She couldn't love anyone."

Desperately, I shook my head, and Blair shuddered. "I know, I know, it's wrong for me to say that. I know."

"No."

He stilled, and after a second sniffed. "'No,' what, Jim?"

"It isn't...her."

"What is it?" he asked. His arms were around me; he was all that was holding me together.

"I know what Aldo said to you."

There was another short pause. "Aldo didn't say anything to me."

"When he was.... He threatened you. I heard what he said, trying to get you to give me up."

"Yeah. Ok."

"You wouldn't do it."

He gave a weepy snort.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Everybody makes mistakes. They were your friends. You loved her."

"Blair, no." I looked up. "I'm sorry."

"Oh." He swallowed. "Oh. Jim, not, not now, ok? I think this is a really bad time."

"When? When is a good time? Blair, I'm in love with you, but I don't know what to do."

"It's.... I understand. I do. I really wish I could help you. But I can't. I can't tell you what to do...I'm not objective here, Jim. You know what I want, and I want it so badly."

"I don't know what you want, Chief."

A stillness came over him. "Jim...we were together, man." His voice dropped, "You were inside me. You know what I want."

"I know how you feel," I whispered. "I don't know what you want."

"You. I want you."

For just a moment I let the joy well up within me. I had known for years that he loved me, but hearing it out loud was still amazing. I hadn't imagined it would feel like this. But--"For how long?"

"Forever."

"Until you graduate? Until you get a job somewhere else? Until you're a famous expert and people are lined up around the block? Until someone else--"

He shook me gently. "Forever. Whatever else happens. You. Forever."

I shook my head, a little afraid. He couldn't promise me forever. He didn't know how he'd feel in a year, in ten years. He didn't know what would happen.

"It's already done, Jim. I'm already here. With you. Don't you know that?"

The tears started again, and Blair pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around me. "What do you want, Jim? You've got me if you want me, you just have to decide."

"You," I whispered. "I want you."

He held me. His heart thundered in my ears, and his left hand petted slowly over my hair. I stopped shaking.

"You ok?"

I pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes. He looked as scared as I felt. I leaned over and kissed him.

He was warm and sweet and so soft, and a wave of heat flashed over my skin. It felt natural. It felt good. I pulled back and laughed weakly.

"Ok," he said carefully. "Amusing. Not what I was going for, but I can try--"

I kissed him again, interrupting him. This time his mouth opened just slightly and I tasted him. He was like a strong, lush wine. I could taste love, his desire, and under that, I could taste his heartbreak, for me, over me. I zoned on it a little, the world narrowing down to the sweet, open taste of Blair, and finally he pulled back slowly. "Let's get you inside. It's been a really long night."

I managed a nod, but it was a moment before I could separate myself from him and reach to open the door.

I followed him across the street and into the building. In the elevator, Blair opened his arm, and I moved in, putting an arm around his shoulder.

Inside the loft, he motioned at me vaguely as he locked the door behind us. "Take off your clothes."

I blinked, startled, and after a moment Blair turned toward me. "You're covered in blood," he said very gently. "Give me your clothes. I'll put them on the balcony for tonight. You need a shower."

Embarrassed--what had I thought, that he would pounce on me in the living room? I stripped and handed him my stiff, crusty clothing. When I came out, wrapped in my bathrobe, he had changed into sweats and was waiting at the table. "Hungry?" he asked.

I shivered, the idea of eating turning my stomach. He got up and came slowly toward me. He didn't ask me how I was doing--he knew. "Here's what I think we should do. I think you should get some sleep."

I nodded, not because I was tired, but because I probably would have agreed if he suggested skydiving. The thought made me smile, and Blair patted my arm. He led me up the stairs to the loft and tucked me in like a small child. He kissed me gently on the forehead and started to pull away. Suddenly fearful and confused, I grabbed his arm. "I love you," I said.

"I know," he said, sadly.

"I...."

"I'm right here, Jim. Always."

I nodded, grateful tears threatening again. Blair climbed over me and lay down on top of the covers beside me. "Ok," I whispered.

He slid an arm over my waist. "It's ok, Jim. I promise."

When I woke up the next morning, he was curled up beside me, one hand clinging to my arm. He was still asleep, his face relaxed, his hair a tangled mat around his head. Warm. Solid. Breathing in slow tides. With me. Still.

If they had nailed me for all those charges, they probably would have gone after him as an accomplice. We were too close. I had endangered both of us by my rank stupidity.

Well, no. Not stupidity. I had not really expected things to work out with Veronica. But it had been easier to go with the familiar failure I could live with rather than to risk failure by trying something unfamiliar and vital with Blair. Cowardice. I had nearly lost us everything--and yet, here he was.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Hi," he said. "Hey, breathe."

I swallowed.

"Feeling any better this morning?"

I nodded.

"We have to go in, don't we? To the station?"

"Yeah...."

Blair came in with me. He sat beside my desk reading while I wrote up the report of my end of things. The bullpen was unusually quiet--obviously the only topic of conversation was, well, me, and there was no way anyone could talk in front of me.

Right before lunch I got a visit from internal affairs. They sent down Sheila Irwin and she talked to me in Simon's office, not an interrogation room. She started off by apologizing. "Jim, I thought he was just overzealous and hostile. I had no idea. None of us did. I knew he wouldn't find anything down here, I mean not in Major Crime. I thought he was harmless, just trying to make a name for himself and being a pest....I'm so sorry."

I shrugged. "What do you want me to say? It had nothing to do with you."

She scowled. "This kind of crap can't be allowed to go on. Jeez, Jim. He nearly got away with it."

I shook my head. However it had turned out, he wouldn't have gotten away with it. Veronica would have seen to that.

"We're going to review our procedures...." she said tentatively. It was as big a peace offering you could get from IA. But their problem wasn't departmental procedure, it was personnel corruption. I shrugged.

After lunch, Joel and Rafe cornered me and Blair in the break room. "We just wanted to know if everything was all right," Rafe said.

Joel said, "If there was anything we could do?"

I floundered for a moment. They knew what a close call this had been. In their place, I might say the same things...but still, somehow, I wasn't ready for their kindness. Blair stood up and laid a hand on my shoulder. "It's ok. Really. I think Simon may put him on leave for a few days, but that's all right."

I nodded. "Thanks, guys," I said.

They nodded, grunting in manly ways, and left us alone. I said, "I just keep....waiting for the other shoe, you know? Like it isn't over or things aren't really ok."

"You've been the living embodiment of stress for a while now," he said, "But, I think we're out of shoes. You can relax for a while."

Despite his apparent confidence, we stopped at a Wonderburger drive-through on the way home. A sure sign that he was coddling me. I didn't even notice till we'd gotten in the door that we'd held hands all the way up the stairs. I put the bags of food down on the table and turned back to him. "So, what do we do now?"

He smiled. "Well we have off till Monday. We could head up to St. Sebastian's."

I blinked. "I'm sorry. Did you really just...offer me a trip to a monastery?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. Solitude. Relaxation. Meditation. You know; good for the soul." He was trying to keep a straight face, but his eyes were laughing.

"Yeah. Ok. I can see where that would be very useful for my...soul. I think though, I mean given our circumstances....well, call me crazy, but I really don't want my first time with a guy to be in a monastery."

I expected him to laugh, but instead his eyes got round and he stopped breathing. He smelled suddenly of panicked sweat.

"What?" I asked worriedly.

"Well, it's a lot of responsibility. I'd just never thought about it before."

"About what? Not going to a monastery?" but he was worrying me.

"A virgin sentinel. Oh, boy..."

"Hey. I'm not--well, ok, yeah. But you can handle it."

"Gee, thanks. Are you basing this faith on...anything?"

"Extended interviews with your former partners--" I was laughing and had to stop. "Seriously," I said, kissing him, "I want you so badly, I won't notice if we screw it up."

"Wow," he said.

Naturally, it wasn't that simple. He slipped off to his bedroom while he sent me upstairs. When he appeared, he had a collection of small bottles and boxes. I tried not to look. It made me wish I knew more about what was about to happen than what I'd picked up over the years in homophobic trash talk. Oh, I'd heard things, read stuff that sometimes came up in police reports...but surely that couldn't be the norm. The truth was, though, beyond a certain point, I actually wasn't sure. There hadn't been a good way to find out, really. Last summer, not long after the whole Tommy Wu/Elaine thing, I had wandered into a couple of bookstores. But I hadn't known where to look and I sure as hell couldn't ask.

I mean, no, of course, I wasn't naive. But surely--I mean, did they really--?

Blair had planted himself in the middle of my bed and was looking at me adoringly. Well, hell. I toed off my shoes and knelt on the bed beside him. He smelled...

Wonderful. Warm. Sweet, but not like flowers. Spicy, sort of like falling leaves in the fall. Tangy, like the earth beneath a pine tree.

Happy. He smelled happy.

I followed that smell, leaning forward, forgetting what I had been worrying about a moment before. How could there be anything to worry about when Blair smelled like this? I followed that smell to his neck, and nuzzled at his collar. My tongue flicked out and traced along his warm, salty skin. The taste of happiness exploded in my mouth, and everything else disappeared.

"Easy. Shhhh. Talk to me, Jim."

I blinked, dizzy and a bit confused.

"Come on, Jim. All right..."

I grunted, panting and clinging to his upper arms to keep from falling over.

"Ok. Yeah. Deep breath. Not so much focus here, ok?"

But I was leaning toward him, still tasting him though inches separated us. Clumsily, I tugged at his shirt, unable to manage the buttons.

"Easy, Jim," and suddenly the shirt was gone. Skin. So much. I ran my hands over him, and he gasped. I touched him with my lips. Soft. Salty. I lost words and thought, and just wandered over him.

He talked to me, I knew that. His hands flickered over my face, keeping me sort of present. I nuzzled his belly, the small of his back, his neck under that soft hair. My ranging hands encountered his pants. I fumbled the snap and tugged them down. I was shaking, overwhelmed with a need I had no idea how to address. Good, he felt good, and his smell was sweet and strong--he smelled like desire, like joy, like wanting, like fulfillment. I wanted to ask, to beg for...something, but all I could manage was a soft groan.

Blair pushed me down onto my back, sliding his hands over my bare skin. I didn't know what had happened to my clothing. He was gentle and slow, and an answering heat seemed to rise up from within me. I panted. My body heaved, not trying to escape him, but trying to express the overwhelming pleasure, trying to act on it.

When I came back to myself, I realized that I had come. Probably come. Climax had never been a region of lapping flames of physical pleasure stretching from mid-thigh to bellybutton before. I had thought I would spilt open with the pressure of the delight. I had seen colors.

I was lying with my face on Blair's chest, too heavy to think of moving, a ringing in my ears so loud that I couldn't hear his heart. I could hear his voice, though, quiet and rhythmic: "Right here. Right here, Jim. You're ok."

I tried to get my hands under me. Damn. I routinely bench pressed two-ten, and here I was, barely able to lift my head.

"Easy, Jim. Nice and slow."

I smelled semen, then. Mine and his. Oh, God. Had I been such an inattentive lover that he'd had to take care of himself? I got my head up finally, and sought his eyes. He was looking at me the way he had so many times before--admiration and pride, this time leavened with tenderness. I swallowed and let my head fall back to his shoulder.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, resting, and then he eased from under me and rummaged among the boxes he'd left on the table beside the bed. He found something there to tidy us up. He dropped a kiss on my head, wrapped himself in a blanket, and scooted off down the stairs, only to return a few minutes later with dinner. We picnicked on the bed, munching cold hamburgers and washing them down with flat soda, before curling up together and falling asleep.

The next morning, I woke beside him again, this time with both of us under the covers. We spent the morning playing. I explored Blair in detail, this time not so overwhelmed by his body that I completely lost its responses to my touch. Every place I touched him, he warmed. His skin flushed and softened under my hands. Very quickly, I learned what delighted him--in a few minutes, I could make his toes curl by just tracing the tip of my finger over a few millimeters of skin. He lay on his back, open and relaxed, his eyes never leaving my face, as I stroked and teased, tempting his body into greater and greater heights of arousal.

When I had thoroughly had my way with him--I laughed inwardly at the thought, dizzy with my own success--we showered and ate, and spent what was left of the morning rearranging space in the loft so he could keep some of his things upstairs.

We didn't move everything. We were agreed on that. Sometimes each of us would need retreat space, and we didn't always have the same schedule. Some days we slept at completely different times. But we moved up a few changes of clothes, an extension cord so he could plug the computer in if he wanted to work in bed, one of his pillows.

When we got hungry, we went down to the gourmet deli over on Pacific Ave. They had fresh, homemade pasta and fresh basil to make pesto. Crusty bread, a wedge of the parmesan cheese that ran eighteen dollars a pound, fresh fruit... Why not--we were celebrating! As we headed for home (late on a Thursday afternoon, with warm July sun, clear skies, and a nice breeze off the bay), I said, "We should have Stephen over."

A smile, quickly swallowed.

"What?" I said.

"You do realize you just suggested inviting your brother to our honeymoon?"

"Bad idea?"

"Great idea. I think you should see more of him. It's just...not traditional."

"Well," I said, "I didn't get a wedding."

"Want one?"

"Hell no. My first one was bad enough. But we can't completely skip the family thing."

"So you're going to tell him?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna tell him."

While Blair fixed dinner, I called Stephen. He was free Saturday. I felt ridiculously optimistic about seeing him.

Although the food was wonderful, we didn't linger over the table. Before seven O'clock we were upstairs again. This time was slower and more careful, and Blair had his teaching voice going again: vanilla homosexual intimacy for beginners. How to be clean. How to be safe. How to make sure nobody got hurt.

"You know," I said, "I thought we were supposed to talk about this before we started...."

He shrugged. "I was paying attention. We didn't do anything that was likely to cause a problem." He leaned down and nuzzled my belly. "You know, I have diagrams downstairs, if you think you need them."

I laughed, and then stopped, not sure he was kidding.

Actually, it was all very...interesting. Stuff that should have had me heading for the hills sounded perfectly reasonable when he explained it. Well not _perfectly_ reasonable. But not terrible. Not scary. Interesting, actually.

We tried some of them. Blair was slow, and very gentle. He talked quietly throughout, explaining every step. After a while, I stopped hearing him. I had no idea what he was doing, only that he smelled like he liked it and I had never imagined feeling this good. Like that first night, I was lost in his overwhelming presence, in the sensations that pulsed through my whole body. It was good. It was better than good. I didn't have to be careful with Blair. I didn't have to protect myself or try to stay in charge. It was like being sixteen, that first time you really, seriously wipe out surfing, and you know there is water and sunlight and excitement, but you aren't sure where they are because you've also lost the board. Or the first time on a horse you feel secure enough to really run, and you realize that you're flying. Or the first time you get five minutes alone with a girl and find out what all the hype regarding breasts is about.

And then, at last, that miraculous torrent of pleasure was over, and I was lying, heavy and dizzy and stupefied, on my back. Was it always supposed to be like this? Or was it just me?

Blair was still with me. His mouth was pressing over mine, and his essence suffused everything. He saturated me. I wanted to smile, to reach for him, but my body was too heavy to move. Blair receded a little, and then a moment later returned as soft pressure, lightness. "Jim," he whispered, "Don't do this to me. Please, Jim."

This was confusing. I wondered what I was doing.

Blair came and went again, the tide going in and out, taking me and letting me go again. It was cold when he was gone. "Jim," he whispered. "Jim, breathe for me. Please."

It didn't feel particularly necessary--I was already so relaxed I was barely this side of conscious. But I didn't want to argue with him, so I breathed.

The air tasted like terror and despair. Above me, a sob wrenched out of Blair and it went through me like a knife. Almost without transition, my eyes were open and I was sitting up, looking for what had hurt him.

We were alone in the loft. The night outside was fairly quiet. Transfixed with shock, Blair looked at me for half a moment and then burst into tears and punched me in the shoulder. "You son of a bitch!"

He collapsed against me. I put my arms around him because I had no idea what else to do. He hugged me back, shaking, tears running down my bare chest. "Blair," I whispered. "Blair, what's wrong?"

It was a while before he could answer me. I stroked his hair and waited. Finally he got out, "You weren't breathing. I couldn't reach you--I couldn't find you. Five minutes, Jim."

"What are you talking about? I'm fine. Chief--"

He pushed back and glared up at me. "You weren't breathing. For five minutes since I _noticed_ , damn it! I could have killed you! You almost died!"

"No--"

"I'm supposed to look out for you, and I almost--"

"Shhh. Enough. I'm ok. Blair? I'm ok."

I held him until he calmed down. At last he let me pull him down beside me. I pulled up the blanket, holding it tight around him. After a while, he got himself together. "I'm so sorry, Jim."

"Don't worry about it. A little accident. You handled it." I was still less than an hour past the best sex of my life. I was tired and a bit loopy. I laughed. "They call it dying..."

That set it off again. It was fifteen minutes before he stopped alternately growling and apologizing. God, Chief. I was too tired to argue. I held him against me until he subsided.

The next day--Friday--there was no sex. No nuggie. No snuggling. No passion. No getting any. Blair had stayed up all that night, watching me breathe to make sure I kept doing it. When I got up in the morning, he went to sleep, and slept till two in the afternoon. When I heard him begin to rise, I went up with a cup of coffee and a big smile, but he met my kiss by turning his head. "Nope," he said. "Never again."

"Never what again?"

"Jim, obviously it's just too dangerous."

Oh, hell. I looked at the ceiling while counting to ten. "Don't you think that you might be overreacting just a bit?"

He tossed the covers off and got up on the other side of the bed. "Overreacting would be me moving out because the temptation was just too much for us. Abstinence is just being properly cautious. Just say no."

"How about, 'being careful is just being properly cautious?'" I suggested hopefully.

He shook his head sadly. He still looked like hell.

So we spent the day _not_ making glorious love. We cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. We shopped. We made homemade bread and brownies. We watched baseball on television. At ten-thirty, we both went up stairs, but Blair put his back to me. I eased up behind him.

"Jim," he said. "This isn't a rejection."

I smiled. "Of course not. Just because you won't touch me."

"Jim--"

I slid an arm around his waist. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'll be more careful next time."

"Aw, Jim--"

"You're just scared. I understand. But we can work it out."

"Jim--Jim, I--I don't want to have to figure out how to live without you."

I pushed his hair aside and planted a kiss behind his ear. "Blair...a lot of things since I met you have been pretty overwhelming the first time. I learn to cope."

He sighed. "Aren't you worried at all?"

"Why bother? You're doing such a thorough job." He laughed. I felt a little better. I pulled him closer against me. "I love you."

The next morning there was snuggling. It did not make it to outright passion, let alone mind-numbing ecstasy. But it was a start, if a rather odd one. He made me talk the entire time--evidence that I was conscious. When I forgot to talk, he stopped whatever he was doing.

Stephen showed up for dinner at six thirty. Blair had beer and little stuffed mushrooms to munch while we sat in the living room and made polite small talk--our work, his promotion, the weather. At last he said, "So...Big Brother."

I frowned slightly. His tone was worrying me. "So...?"

He sighed. "Please tell me you're dating Blair."

I blinked and said obediently, "I'm dating Blair."

He laughed tightly. "Thank God. It was either that or Dad was dying, and I really wasn't up to door number two."

"Oh," I said. Sure. Obviously. I glanced at Blair, who smiled reassuringly. "So you're not...." Unhappy? Disappointed? Surprised? Obviously not. He sat calmly under my gaze.

"But...there's more to it, isn't there?" Stephen said carefully. "It isn't just that you're together."

I glanced at Blair, who looked back without flinching. He was letting me handle this. "No," I said. "It's kind of complicated." I took a deep breath. "I have an ongoing...situation that Blair helps me with. That's how I met him. The police research--it was a lie. A cover story."

Stephen leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He didn't say anything.

"I kind of have a--" problem. defect. talent. abnormality. genetic anomaly. "gift." I paused, but Stephen's gaze never wavered. "My senses are...significantly enhanced. Blair teaches me how to use them. How to cope with them."

Stephen nodded slowly. "Is this...something the army did to you?"

"No. This is me. I had them when I was very young, but they went dormant for a while."

Always before, with Simon or Megan or even Dad, I referred most sensory questions to Blair, when I couldn't manage to avoid them completely. That night I explained it all to Stephen myself--how common it probably was historically, how the senses were affected by external factors like isolation and stress, how difficult it was to learn to adapt to the increased input, how much practice it took to get control. Blair had to slip into the kitchen and turn dinner off--Stephen kept asking questions, and I kept answering them. How did it happen? What did it feel like? How much could I hear?

When we finally ate, the food was cold and slightly congealed, but none of us cared. He went home just after two, still excited but too tired to think of more questions. I was smiling as I locked the door after him.

"I had no idea you planned to do that," Blair said.

"Neither did I," I said. "Let's celebrate."

He leaned up to kiss me. "All you want, as long as you remember to keep talking."

The weekend ended too quickly. Monday and Tuesday we spend on a couple of messy but comparatively straightforward murders that should have gone to Homicide, and would have if half of them weren't down with the flu. It was an open and shut case, though. The brother-in-law did it, and by Tuesday evening we had him locked up and were starting on the final paperwork. I stayed late to tidy up the details and Blair went to help a friend move. On the way home, he managed to stumble on _both_ a prowling pack of carjackers and a murder. He was lucky he didn't get himself killed. That night, when we got home, we were all over each other, both of us in a hurry to comfort the other and trying to forget the blood and the death. Blair was still making me talk, so I cataloged everything I liked about him. Apparently not too coherently, because afterward, as we drifted toward sleep, he whispered, "You think my eggs are cute?"

"When you try to slip a yolk out on me. 'S cute."

The next day I got sick. It scared the hell out of me. Denial would have been nice, but way too risky. Here was the deal: it had been less than two and a half months since Blair had drowned. He'd come through it very well--miraculously, really--but there had been some minor damage to his lungs. Any infection, particularly so soon, could easily blossom into something dangerous. The bottom line was, I could afford to get sick, Blair couldn't.

Obviously, I had to make sure Blair didn't get it. I took the weird native remedy he offered me without complaint and tried to keep my distance. I finished the paperwork on my desk and went home like a good boy to guzzle orange juice and sleep. I warned my germs that if any of them attempted to jump ship, I would take Sandburg to an emergency room at the first sign of fever and get whatever antibiotics it took to terminate them with prejudice.

Of course, the flu was caused by viruses not bacteria, but I maybe they weren't smart enough to know that. It was somewhere in the course of threatening my microbes that I realized that I was probably feverish and a bit punchy. I drank more orange juice and took another nap.

I woke up at seven-thirty. Blair had come home with about fifty pounds of ghost-busting equipment. Lovely. He was still on about that weirdness last night, and enjoying himself waaaay too much. Ghosts. Another thing I'd love to pretend wasn't happening. Sadly, though, denial just didn't seem to work as well as it used to.

I never did figure out how Joel--Joel, of all people--managed to lie to me. Just chalk it up to illness. He called and said there'd been a report of strange noises and lights at the scene of last night's murder. Of course it was a practical joke. Brown and Rafe had conned Joel into playing haunted house. Neither Sandburg nor I had much of a sense of humor about it.

Unfortunately....when they left, I saw it again. Instead of doing the sane thing and running away, I collected Blair and his equipment and went back. I had, at last, come to accept that running away from this shit wouldn't actually lead to escaping it. And, ok, yes, if this did turn out to be a hallucination and Blair watched me run headlong into it, well that would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? But whether it was delusion or a sensory problem or--God help me--real, it was a lot less likely to end in disaster if Blair was with me.

Upstairs, in that empty apartment, I had a kind of vision. Not a blue dream. It was a bit like the traces of Alex I had followed south, but calmer and clearer and not so overwhelming. When it was over, I still had more questions than answers, but at least I had a direction to begin looking. That woman, whoever she was, had been in terrible trouble. Whatever had happened, apparently nobody knew about it but me. It was real and it was important, and I wasn't going to pretend I didn't know about it just because it scared me and was potentially embarrassing.

We got home late, tired and clueless. Blair set his gear on the table and turned to embrace me. I stepped away. "I'm pretty contagious, Chief. You better not."

He looked at me in disbelief and followed me. "Yeah, right."

"I'm serious, here. You don't need this."

He paused, blinking at me, and then hardened. "You know, I don't think we've discussed anything about this, and I'm pretty sure you weren't there when I left the hospital. Were you skulking in the lobby when I went for my follow-up?"

My anger reared up to match his. "I didn't know you'd had one. Last I heard, you'd ditched your doctor's appointment."

"So how did you--"

"You signed your medical records into evidence. Remember?"

He backed off promptly. "Oh. Right." He sighed. "You shouldn't have looked."

"Why not? Aside from the fact that it was my case...I love you. I can't just...I know you have a right to boundaries, too, but..."

"It isn't about boundaries, Jim. Not only about boundaries. You don't need to be worrying about this."

I swallowed. "You need to sleep downstairs, tonight."

"Why? For nearly a week we've been inseparable. We saw the same people, went to the same places. Wherever you caught this, I was exposed too."

"And you've been lucky so far. Why push it?"

"You were probably contagious yesterday. It's already too late."

"Please," I said.

He nodded sadly. I kissed the top of his head and left him downstairs. The bed was cold without him. Sleeping wasn't easy. I'd already gotten used to his company. Besides, even with his remedy, my throat was raw and my sinuses were swollen and runny. I felt like shit, almost bad enough to risk something over-the-counter. Almost, but not quite.

I'd been tossing and turning for almost an hour when Blair appeared at the top of the stairs. He sat down on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on the back of my neck. It felt cool and reassuring. I sighed. "Love you," he said.

"Thanks...I can't actually smell it right now. Are you mad?"

"No. I'm not mad." His thumb stroked the back of my head. I was swollen there too. My head was so full of mucus it was nearly coming out my tear ducts.

I shifted the pillow, getting comfortable finally. My mind floated. "Do you think it's dangerous for other sentinels?" I asked.

His hand paused. "What?"

"You know. Intimacy."

"I just don't know. It wasn't dangerous for you before me. Was it?"

I grunted.

"So what's different with me?"

I thought. "It's better--you're better. And I'm relaxed with you. I don't have to worry about you panicking if I zone or have some kind of weird response. You'll understand. And I don't have to worry about you doing something weird in the middle, like pinching or biting." I shivered. Nothing killed an erection as quickly as unexpected, excruciating pain.

"Hmmmm," he said.

"Don't get any ideas," I said.

"Right, no. I don't see how solving this by making me more untrustworthy is a satisfactory solution."

I sighed, drifting off to sleep.

The next day I felt a little better. We kept working on our murder cases--both the one we had been assigned by Simon and the one we had been given by the woman I'd seen. They kept us running for a couple of days. My usual luck held: the further into it we got, the more it seemed to be a ghost, my own personal haunting. "Apparently" because Simon was convinced the whole thing was just a figment induced by a sentinel reaction to Blair's cold remedy. I couldn't get away from the fact that the only other person who could "see" Molly had a documentable mental illness. Blair was...philosophical about the whole thing. He said that when two people have the same 'hallucination' you have inter-subjectivity, not a private delusion. And, anyway, what did it matter _what_ Molly really was or _how_ we were seeing her if the information she gave us was accurate and helped us solve two murders? I said that was a hell of a thing for a scientist to say, and he should go wash his mouth out with soap.

Sandburg didn't get sick. Three or four times a day he'd sniff loudly and say, "Hmmm. Nope. Not sneezing yet."

After three days, I turned around and answered, "Oh, yes. I was wrong. I am so disappointed to be wrong. Crushed. How can I go on?" He didn't tease me after that.

By then I was fine, too. Completely recovered. We did our damnedest to make the most of it, even to the point of getting sleep-deprived.

* * *

 _It must be tough growing up with an old man on the most wanted list._

 _Yeah, maybe I was lucky not knowing who my real father was. I might not have liked what I found out._

* * *

Watching Lindsay trying to work out her relationship with her father brought up a lot of Blair's old issues. It was disconcerting for me, because I usually didn't think much about Blair having issues. Generally, he was an _antidote_ to issues. He was calm. Sane. An absolute rock.

Not that I could blame him for _not_ being a rock. I mean, I could see growing up without a father--as much as I'd often wished I didn't have mine--had to be hard. Didn't it? Blair would always have to _wonder_ if his father was a good man, if his father would have liked him or been proud of him, if they looked alike or shared the same temperament. _I_ could look at my father and say, 'Ah. I am a stubborn jackass so much of the time because it's hereditary.' Sandburg would never have that.

I think Lindsay's problem was hard on him for other reasons, too. Even though Blair knew just how bad parental relationships could be (even if he had been innocent before, he had worked with cops for three years), he also knew how good they could be. Naomi, despite being irritating and a little scary, loved him. She had made a life for him--an unorthodox life, to be sure, but she had done her best. She had never, ever told him he wasn't good enough or been ashamed of him. She tried, he tried, and the relationship was mostly successful.

So when he looked at Lindsay and Harry, he saw two people who could have had a relationship--not trying. Or at least not trying at the same time. He felt sorry for them, but, more than that, he saw two people throwing away a chance he'd never had himself. I didn't have a lot to say that Blair could use. I wasn't unsympathetic to the situation Lindsay and her father were in, but I knew that things just didn't always work out, that people weren't always compatible. That was just a fact of life, and the best you could do about it was appreciate those relationships that _did_ work out.

But Blair hovered. He had just started a second session summer school class, and was busy with the diss, but he scraped together as much time for them as he could. Which was good; I needed him. It was a heavy case--fast moving, high stakes, and involving a large number of highly precarious, emotional people (including Simon after the FBI started breathing down his neck).

It was Blair who came up with the plan we used to snatch Conkle. What seemed to matter most to him? His daughter. So Blair worked out the idea and talked Lindsay into being the bait. We scared Conkle so badly, he walked into the trap without even looking around. Blair felt bad about that, using his child against him.

Harry got sucked into the investigation, more like a tense, handcuffed consultant than a prisoner. All my police instincts screamed at me not to trust him. Or at least, all my police habits. But he smelled sick to me, and he didn't smell like lies, so I gave him the benefit of a doubt and a very short leash.

Not short enough. Eight hours after we picked him up, he was gone again, this time with his infant grandson. I went back to Lindsay's apartment to pick him up for the FBI and was greeted by the sharp scent of knock-out gas. The uniform I'd left on guard was passed out on the floor and Blair was motionless on the couch and I couldn't hear either of their heartbeats over the roaring in my own ears. I stumbled toward him, knowing the gas wasn't fatal, panicking anyway.

"Chief, come on, wake up." I knew when I touched him that he was only asleep. It was only then that I began to think again, to realize just how badly I'd messed up. The baby was gone. Conkle was gone, and the baby was gone. Shit.

We stayed at the station till after eleven that night. And found nothing. Zip. Lindsay was....heartbreaking to watch. You'd think she would be angry, that she would blame us or blame herself. You'd think she'd threaten or beg or demand or....something. She just sat there, looking haunted and confused.

Finally, after six dead ends in a row, Blair coaxed me home. It was late. We hadn't rested, hadn't eaten. He sat me at the table and warmed leftover pizza in the microwave. "I just don't get it, Jim," he said as he put my plate down, "He had at least two other chances to take that baby. Why now?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know. I had trusted him. I had let down my guard. Whether Tyler's mother knew it or not, this disaster was my fault, and I had no idea how to fix it.

"And besides, _why_ did he take the baby? I mean if he's sick, what is he going to do with him? God! Well, at least he won't hurt the baby. I mean he won't, will he, Jim? He'll bring the baby back...?"

I picked up a piece of pizza, put it down without biting it. My stomach felt horrible. "Maybe...it's worse than that," I said.

"What?"

"How did he gas that apartment, Chief? He didn't bring it in with him. Ok, maybe he had an automatic rig set up somewhere and we didn't find it because he took it with him. But how did he trigger it? He wasn't wearing a device. We searched him."

"Oh, my God."

I shoved the plate away. "Yeah. I mean, if he cares about Lindsay so much he risks capture to get to her when he thinks she's sick...is he going to scare her to death by taking her kid?"

We sat in silence for a while. "What do we do?"

"If I had any ideas, we'd be trying them now."

"Oh. Right." He sighed. "Poor Lindsay. At least--" he stopped and looked away.

"What?" I said.

"No. I don't suppose that's making her feel any better right now."

"What?"

"To know that her father really cares." He paused, and I waited in silence, feeling that we were at the edge of something big, but not sure what it was. "Sometimes I--"

"What?"

He shrugged. "It isn't important."

"Tell me anyway," I said casually.

"Sometimes I wonder if Naomi lied to me. About not knowing."

"Why?" Naomi was open and up front to the point that I often found her startling. Did Blair really think she could pull off an extended lie for twenty-eight years?

"I mean...what if she knew who my father was. And he knew. And--"

"And he...wasn't exactly a prize?" I prompted gently. "Some kind of criminal or something?"

Blair shook his head. "What if he knew all along and he just didn't care? I mean, it happens. Harry just walked away from _his_ kid for years...."

I came around the table and pulled him against me. "His loss. Why ever he isn't here, Blair...it's his loss."

He hugged me for a moment, then pulled away, almost angrily. "Listen to me, getting all sad about what I _don't_ have! I may not have a dad, but I also don't have a child of mine missing! And--and you! Never in my life did I imagine anyone as wonderful as you...and here you are, and what do I do but start some irrelevant pity party! Jeez!"

I kissed him, nearly zoning on his pizza-seasoned sweetness. We left the dirty dishes and went upstairs for a little comfort and a few hours sleep.

The next morning I got recruited as the wheel man for a bank robbery: I was Harry's ringer. Blair and I tried to be suspicious--both of us had been burned too many times to keep our blind faith in human goodness. But neither of us was suspicious enough to tell the FBI until an hour before it was to go down. At quarter of eight the next morning, we were all in place, and Harry's plan went down like clockwork, even the part his 'partner' didn't know about, the part where I popped out of Harry's trunk and ordered him to surrender.

And then--impossibly--Conkle panicked. A moment from the end, he charged Cryss. Harry was, obviously, unarmed, and Cryss was a desperate man. I got Cryss, but not before he'd gotten Harry. My stomach knotted at the smell of the blood. I could just picture telling Lindsay that her father had died.... I went to him, but even bleeding from his gut, all he cared about was that baby.

I went to Tyler and lifted him carefully, suddenly aware how fragile babies were. He didn't smell hungry or distressed. His diaper was dirty, but I didn't think it had been for very long. He squirmed in my hands, good strong movements. I was nearly trembling, but the baby was fine. I whispered to him, and held him up where Harry could see.

I put the baby back in the carrier and called Simon to give the all clear. The baby, unhappy about being put down, began to cry. I picked him up again. He still seemed unhappy, and I looked at the diaper bag. My experience with children was almost completely limited to Chopec children. They didn't use diapers. "How 'bout we just wait a bit," I murmured, and carried Tyler over to sit next to Harry. I could hear the slow leak of blood and I smelled perforated bowel. Aw, God. I stripped off my jacket and laid it over him.

I was still sitting on the floor beside him, the baby close against my chest, when Simon and Joel came tearing in three minutes later. Calm, I thought. Comfortable. Everything is under control. Tyler whimpered. I stood up and backed him away from the armed men with their loud voices and heavy shoes.

Blair was at the rear or the pack. "Is he ok?" Blair asked, his hands hovering just above the baby. "The EMTs are on the way."

"Fine," I whispered. "He's fine. Lindsay?"

"Rafe's bringing her."

It was another hour or more before I finished with the feds. I wanted to collect Blair and go home. I wanted to take him upstairs. I wanted to hear that little grunt he'd make as he came in my arms. Instead, we waited with Lindsay at the hospital until her father got out of surgery.

I thought, as I sat in the waiting room counting grains of dust lodged between the floor tiles, that this would not have happened before Blair. I had understood about looking out for the victims and the witnesses and the innocents who got caught up in these things...but before Blair, I hadn't been very good at it. I hadn't realized that a spectacular rescue wasn't the only way you could save someone. Sometimes, sitting quietly with them when the waiting was unbearable was almost as good.

Lindsay saw her father briefly in recovery, and then Blair and I took her home. As we pulled away from her building, Blair said, "A 'most wanted' _and_ a cop-killer. The feds will be all over you tomorrow for stealing their thunder, but I'll bet you get a commendation, anyway."

I snorted. "I'm lucky I'm not on report. Did you see Simon's face this morning?"

"It was good work."

"Shall we make a list of the procedures I didn't follow?" But it was no use. He was looking at me like I'd invented ice cream or something. Madness, that he should love me so much. "You had a big part in it too."

He blinked. "It's not the same. I'm not a cop."

He was busy, the next few weeks. Both of us were. He was still teaching every day, and working on the diss. As for me, crime wasn't too heavy, but Arthur Sabin and Mark Cantor were coming up for trial in the near future, and both of them had been my cases. Although he was careful to come to the station regularly and spend private time with me, Blair stopped cooking and cut back on his sleep. It irritated me, to wake up at five in the morning hearing the soft ticks of his keyboard.

How crazy is that, to be jealous of the book he was writing about me? Usually, I tried to go back to sleep, but the sixth or seventh time this happened, I came downstairs, poured myself a glass of water, and sat down at the table across from him.

He finished his sentence, saved, and blanked the screen. "You ok?"

"Yeah, fine."

"The noise wake you?"

I shook my head. It was missing him beside me that woke me. "How close are you to done?"

"A long way. This _draft_ is nearly done, but..."

I looked at the quiet laptop. "So what happens next?"

"I finish this draft, I turn it in and hopefully somebody reads it. Then I make the changes they want and I defend it--"

"That meeting thing."

"Right. That meeting thing. Then I make the changes they want and graduate."

I swallowed. "And then you publish it."

To my surprise, he laughed. "What?" I asked.

"Well...when I turn the final version in and it gets registered, that counts as 'publishing.' But nobody is going to read that. I mean--" he dug through a pile of papers beside him and passed me a numbered list "--who is going to read this? It isn't any use to anybody but a few anthropologists." The paper was his table of contents. It seemed to be in English, but looking at it, I couldn't tell what any of the chapters were about, and most of them were theoretically about me. "When I have the...the credibility of the degree, then I'll write the _useful_ book."

"The useful book?"

"The one with chapters like "how to tell if your child might be a sentinel" and "how to cope with the zone-out factor" and "medical hazards." You know. Like that."

"Oh," I said, nodding slowly. Of course.

"Don't look like that," he said. "It isn't so bad. It's changed a lot since you saw it last. When I'm done, nobody will be able to recognize you."

"And when it's a best seller?" I asked, despite myself.

He laughed sadly. "It won't be. It'll be a small book, and probably pretty dry...and it will be useful to such a _small_ fragment of the population. Generally, it won't attract too much attention. Just get me into fights at the Annual Meetings for a while." He sighed. "There is a lot to do, first, though. I have to finish this and graduate. And I have to get a job."

"Any chance of you staying on at Rainier?"

"Not a lot," his eyes were sad, but he smiled. "There's a community college in town, though. And a couple of schools over in Seattle, if I don't mind an hour commute."

"Oh. And that's the normal way to do these things?"

He nodded gently. "Yeah, Jim. Everything's fine."

"Fine," I agreed.

He stood up and came around and stood behind my chair. His arms slid down around me and I could feel his pulse through his skin. "You know I love you," he said. "You know I think you're absolutely wonderful. Right?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to talk.

"You have a couple of hours before you have to be at work, right?"

I nodded again.

"Let's go back upstairs."

So the summer inched along--cold and wet and miserable and the best summer of my life. All the things I dreamed of doing, I did. I slept in his arms. I played with his hair. I slipped into the shower with him. I took him to a movie and held his warm hand in the dark. It was wonderful. I didn't see as much of him as I wanted to, but Blair brought a new dimension to "quality time."

At the end of August, Simon assigned Megan and me to a security detail taking care of a union organizer named Bartley. Our first day started fairly early in the morning, but Blair arrived just after Megan. I was surprised to see him at all--when I'd left him at six-thirty, he'd been typing in a kind of trance.

Bartley was a real prize. In the first three minutes, he managed to insult both Megan and Blair--pretty thoroughly, too. Wherever the success that was alarming the shipping companies so much was coming from, it wasn't charm and sensitivity.

He was giving a speech that morning. A low stage had been set up outside near a warehouse by the docks. The open space before it was filling up with longshoremen and a few reporters. I stationed myself to one side of the platform and took a slow look around. All I could hear was dock workers cheering--not useful. I smelled Megan's gun, and mine. And--there--the security guard's. It was hard to work with so many people around, so close. I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed. I focused my attention further out, mostly vision now.

A tiny flash of light caught my attention. The hazy sunlight was glinting off a rifle scope, behind which was Klaus Zeller. Even as I spotted him, he spotted me. I kept my face neutral. He just knew I was standing here. He had no idea I was watching him...

He had me in his sights. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I waited until he looked away, the barrel of his rifle moving to my right. Bartley. Slowly I drew my gun and sighted Zeller. It took an extra moment as I worked out the distance my sight had compensated for automatically. It was a long shot, but it wasn't windy and my target wasn't moving.

I took the shot and Zeller disappeared. I didn't think I hit him, though. Damn. By the time we got there, he would be gone.

Around me the crowd had dissolved into screaming and running. I'd almost forgotten them in my concentration. Above me, Megan was already hauling Bartley off the stage. I may have lost the shooter, but at least the target was still safe.

It was chaos for a while after that--getting Bartley away, trying to pull together some kind of crowd control, getting someone over to the building Zeller had used for his sniper's nest....

Zeller. Shit. I dug out my phone and called Simon while looking around for Sandburg. I knew Zeller's file almost by heart. He had a nasty temper and he held grudges. He was also a professional, so he probably wouldn't let his personal feelings interfere with his contract, at least until he'd fulfilled it, but still...He had lots of reason to be pretty mad at Sandburg and me. I wished Blair was armed, not for the first time. Not that it would do much good. There wasn't enough firearms training in the world to make Blair a match for Zeller on those terms.

Somehow we had to keep things on our terms. As soon as I got word that Bartley was clear, I went over to the empty apartment Zeller had used. The uniforms who'd been watching the perimeter had secured the scene, but that was all. They hadn't touched anything.

Not that there was much to touch. Zeller had been tidy, and not left us much to work with. Just a bit of twisted metal and broken glass from a broken gun scope. I didn't even see any fresh prints. Damn, damn. Well, what had I expected? A business card with his address?

Somberly, I collected Blair and headed back to the car.

"How sure are you it was him?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

"Lovely." He smelled a little nervous. "What's the plan?"

"Make absolutely no mistakes."

"Oh." He said nothing else till we got to the truck, and then dropped, out of the blue, "My mom's in town."

My toe caught slightly and I tripped. "She is?"

"Got in this morning."

"Some reason you didn't tell me?"

He grinned. "Didn't know."

Slowly, I slid into my seat. "It'll be...nice to see her again."

"You sound less than thrilled. Should I be offended?"

"It isn't--It's her I'm worried about. How angry is she going to be when she finds out I've corrupted her baby?"

"Jim, I told you. She knows. She's known for years."

"Not about you seeing a guy," I was amazed at how calmly I could say that statement. "About you seeing a cop. I can see it now. She's going to kill me, poison me with that tea made of weeds."

"Nettle. It's not poisonous. And what makes you think she doesn't already know?"

"Did you tell her?"

"Not yet."

"Well, _that_."

"Jim, I mooned after you for three years. I think she might have noticed."

"Oh, God."

"Jim, she _likes_ you." He sighed. "Look, we don't have to tell her. Or we don't have to tell her _now_ , if you're not ready. It's ok."

"No. No. It's ok. It's just...a surprise. It's fine. Let's get back to work."

The security detail was expanded into a full-blown task force. More than half of Major Crime was assigned to the hunt for Zeller. By five O'clock, we hadn't made any headway on finding him, but Bartley was safely tucked away in a safehouse for the night. If we could just keep him alive till after the union vote, the most immediate Zeller problem would be moot anyway.

Naomi was waiting when we got home. She was in the kitchen making stew. She smelled happy. Part of me relaxed a little, even though, when she hugged me hello, she casually felt me up. I was never sure if this was how she was trying to tease Blair or if this was her way of making a compliment.

Blair asked to talk to her alone. That was fine with me, although my nervousness had faded quite a bit since that morning. I sat on the couch listening to Santana and hoping Naomi wasn't about to come out and hunt me down with a meat cleaver or something.

Pacifist, I thought. She won't be violent.

And then, I thought, pacifist. I am not at all what she wanted for her son. Cop was bad enough, but I was also a particularly dirty kind of soldier. She was going to be very unhappy.

It was a very long talk. I was half-way through the CD before the movement of air told me that Blair's door was open. I turned off the music and looked around. Naomi was coming toward me--smiling, but subdued. Her arms were wrapped around her as though she were trying to keep them from flying off. She paused, and glanced back at Blair. "You were right," she said. "He looks absolutely terrified."

"Mom," Blair said warningly.

She sat down in the chair across from me, her legs folded up gracefully. She looked at me. I managed to look back. Whatever happened, I was going to handle this calmly. I would do that for Blair. We were going to get through this, whatever happened. Whatever she said.

She leaned forward. I thought she still smelled happy, but she also smelled worried and like vanilla and ylang-ylang and natural rose, and I couldn't be sure. "How are you doing?" she asked. Which was not what I expected.

I shrugged and nodded, watching her narrowly. This woman knew I was sleeping with her son. She knew me better now than my own father did. Everything began to run together in my mind, and I began to sweat in earnest. Before anxiety could blossom into panic, Blair stepped up next to me and leaned down to plant a kiss on my head, at the back where the hair was getting thin. "We're fine, Mom."

"Fine," I agreed, nodding again.

Naomi gave me a long, kind look. There was nothing sexual or teasing about her now. She had transformed into something weirdly...maternal. "You seem a little tense, Jim. Oh, but, I suppose you're just now coming out, after all."

She said like it was no big deal. Well, a big deal, but just as natural as moving or changing jobs. Difficult, but hardly shocking. My own surprise surprised me. I had told myself I could cope, that I was fine with it. But nobody knew but Blair and Stephen, and--and--and-- talking to someone else was just different than thinking about it. Realer. More dangerous. Strange.

Naomi was still talking. "--think you'll do just fine though. It might take a little practice, but almost everything does. And you have Blair to help. I think you're very lucky there."

I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about, but I could agree with the last part no matter what the issue was, and that seemed to satisfy her. "We'll have to celebrate, of course. I should take you both out for a nice dinner. Or perhaps a gift. Something symbolic...."

The evening was pleasant. The stew was actually not too bad, even if it was completely vegan. Naomi showed us pictures from her last trip to South Africa. I was polite, and I think I managed to conceal my disappointment over the fact that I wouldn't be getting any tonight. Not with Naomi downstairs, dear God. His _mother_ \--oh, no, not a chance! Not tonight, not in the foreseeable future, either, because she had not said when she was leaving.

I went to bed early to give them some time alone, but Blair followed me up not long after. He stripped and slid into bed, his body flowing against mine like warm silk. His hands slid down. I pulled back.

"What?" he said.

"You're kidding me!"

There was a tiny, stifled giggle, and he whispered, "You are such a prude."

I snorted. "Do you want to explain to your mother why we're up here reciting the alphabet?"

"Oh," he said. "That does sound weird. You could recite poetry."

"Also weird. And if I had enough control to remember any poetry yet, you wouldn't need me to keep talking."

"Right. Sorry." I turned away from him, but he slid behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist and laying his cheek against the back of my neck. I sighed.

The next morning as we were headed out the door, Simon called. Bartley had apparently told Megan that, while she was a 'real cutie,' she just didn't understand how important his work was, and he couldn't wait in hiding while his enemies got ahead of him. He'd already left for his office down at the waterfront. Simon wanted us to talk to him, although I had no idea what good that would do. I promised we'd head there first and hung up.

As Blair and I got into the truck, a small crowd converged on us. One of them was yelling something about sentinels, and I turned to Blair, thinking, 'how odd!' Someone leaned in the window, making me flinch, and yelled, "Detective Ellison--can you tell us why you decided to reveal your abilities at this time, sir?"

What? What abilities? My only abilities--I swung around and looked at Blair.

"How will the publication of Mr. Sandburg's manuscript affect your work with the police department?"

Blair had gone pale and rigid. He didn't look surprised, only upset. I went cold. "Chief, tell me you didn't." Although I couldn't guess what other explanation there could be.

"No, no," Blair said desperately. "I didn't do anything." He turned to the reporter at his window. "Look, there must be some mistake here. I don't know where you got your information from--"

"Your publisher sent us excerpts from the manuscript."

"My what? I don't have a publisher."

"Let's hear it from the sentinel himself," the reporter said. He was looking at me.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, get that out of here, and back off before someone loses a toe." I threw the car into gear and pulled out.

"Jim, I can explain--"

"Chief, do not say anything right now," I grated, thinking, please do not make me talk now. If he pushed me into talking now, I would say things that would hurt him, things I couldn't take back. I was almost angry enough not to care, but--No. I clamped my teeth together and concentrated on not letting my rage become words.

What good would rage do now anyway? It was all over. It was out, and not just to some co-worker or police-exchange detective, but to everyone. To newspapers and channel 2. There was nothing for my anger to do. No heroics. No negotiations. No cleverness. No force. It was all gone--

My job, dear God! I couldn't work if every lowlife in town knew he could take me out of the game with a bucket of cheap perfume. And my friends would know now. And the co-workers who respected me, gone, all of that. The privacy of my home, my peace--I would never get a moment's rest, now.

And Blair. Something in me shook and hurt. I tried to push the thought away, it was too much. But how could I ignore it? Blair had betrayed me. And he had done it with such little regard that he hadn't even bothered to tell me. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"I thought I had taken care of it."

"Oh, I'd say you took care of it, all right."

He gulped, "No, you see, my mom--" He stopped.

"What does your mom have to do with this?"

"She sent it to an editor friend. She thought he could give me pointers. But he--" a miserable laugh "he wanted to publish it. He offered me this, this, this huge amount of money!"

"And you just couldn't resist?"

"What--No! I told him no. He couldn't publish it, it wasn't ready! I told him to leave me alone....I guess he's thinking that making a public fuss will change my mind."

A public fuss. I swallowed hard. Blair was going to be famous.

I was going to be famous.

I didn't say anything, just drove to Bartley's office. The streets passed in a dim blur. It was all over. I was going to be famous. Things had been so good. Everything I had ever hoped for had been in my hands. No, I had never been brave enough to even hope for a lot of what I had. And now it was all gone, and the person who'd done this to me was Blair.

He sat hunched in the corner, smelling of hurt and shame. I really, really wanted to hit him. As I pulled into a parking spot, he asked quietly, "Why aren't you saying anything?"

"There's nothing to say, Chief. It's all been said. It's out. It's over. There's no going back." The anger reared up, and I shoved it back down. Screaming at him wouldn't help. That was the crux of the problem: nothing would help. "I just thought we had an agreement that I was going to read your thesis first."

"We _did_. Look, I didn't do this."

"Right," I said bitterly. "You didn't write the book and you didn't put my name all over it."

"Well, of course I did, but I was planning on changing your name and probably even mine to protect you. I just hadn't figured out a way to do that without compromising the documentation."

I looked at him. "You said this Sid is throwing a lot of money in your face, right?"

"Yeah...."

"Just to generate publicity for the sake of generating publicity? Without even having a deal? Because he wants to--what? toss it in your face like a dangling carrot?"

Blair flinched. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Stop. What are you trying to say, I was part of this from the start? You think that's what I'm about?"

"Why didn't you say anything about this last night? It just looks like guilty conscience to me."

"I thought it was over! My mom was doing what she thought was right. She didn't _know_ what it was about."

True, I had no doubt. Naomi was as innocent of malicious intent as she was of common sense. But I didn't want to make this about Naomi, any more than I wanted to let go of my fury at Blair. I took another shot at him--there were so many to choose from. "How the hell did your mother get her hands on this? It was lying around like coffee-table reading?"

Apparently, he recognized my technique. "No, look, don't you try to run some interrogation on me. You're not going to find some weak spot in me, all right? Look, I'm not some perp. I'm your friend."

He was reasonable, astute, calm. I was not ready to be reasonable. Nothing was ever going to be right again. Hadn't he figured that out? Or, maybe, he didn't really mind so much, after all. Maybe he hadn't lost anything important this morning. "Chief, you got a great opportunity here. It's a once-in-a-lifetime play. Go for the brass ring. Good luck, huh?"

I stormed away from him, leaving him to scamper behind me. I took the stairs to Bartley's office on the second floor, trying to put my anger aside long enough to get through the meeting to come. My job. It didn't matter if my life was over or not, I still had to do my job.

Simon and I tried to convince Bartley just how serious the threat to him was. We went around and around, explaining just who Klaus Zeller was and why we couldn't protect a target who wouldn't follow our advice. It was almost a relief, to have something else to think about. A professional killer with a grudge was the least scary thing in my life just then.

After we had worked out a compromise we could all live with and Bartley had left for a meeting down the hall, Blair approached Simon, Megan, and me. He was holding his cell phone and looking miserable. "Uh," he said. "I think there's something you should know. I tried to put a stop to it but... the noon news is going to run a story about Jim and me."

The noon news. I glanced at Simon and Megan, who naturally had no idea. Gulping, I fled. The noon news. The whole sentinel business was going to be on the noon news. I nearly ran to the truck, and drove alone to the station. My life was over, but I still had to do my job. There calls to make, extensive arrangements before we could lay the trap for Zeller, and not a lot of time. Conner caught up with me in the bullpen. Our best bet was to get Zeller to move before Bartley's speech tonight, but there were a dozen ways that could go wrong, and we needed contingency plans for all of them. We pulled Brown in on it, while Rafe and Dills continued the manhunt for Zeller.

While Connor arranged for the equipment we'd need for when Bartley actually gave his speech, I went out to talk to Macey out at the coroner's office. This little project already involved half of Major Crime and half a dozen uniforms, and I hated to involve yet another department, but if Zeller made the attempt and somehow got away from us, the safest way to get Bartley out would be as his own corpse.

Just as I was getting back, Brown closed on me. "Hey, Jim, my wife's having lunch with the ladies across town. I wonder if you could put your ear out and tell me what they're saying about me."

For a second I froze, startled. Brown was smiling. He smelled as amused as hell. My tongue stumbled into an automatic comeback. "Yeah, she says your car's too small for her garage."

Rafe was next: "Hey! Hey, Jim, when are you going to start wearing tights and a cape?" It was like running some kind of gauntlet. I fended them off weakly, trying to look like I didn't care, or that I was just a little annoyed at their childishness. I think it worked. I don't think they could tell that my life was over. Hell. Over or not, I still had to keep on living, still had to keep on facing these people, doing my job. It was over, but I wasn't going to get to finish.

When Sandburg came in, it got even worse. They stopped attacking one at a time, and coordinated as a group. God, what a mess. Blair fled, but the crowd remained. Simon came out of his office glowering like a thundercloud and dispersed them. He denied everything. As the little knots of people broke and everyone went back to their own desks, Simon came over to stand beside me. "Is that the official line, Captain?" I asked softly.

He snorted. "Are you kidding me? I have no idea what the official line is. I've been ducking calls from the brass all morning."

Ah, yes. Of course, the press would also be harassing the police department. Simon was looking to me for some kind of direction. I had no help to offer him. I had no control and no useful ideas. Well, hell. There was nothing to _do_ but watch the fallout of my life hail down around us.

The rest of the day did not improve. There was no more chanting, but everyone I passed in the hall looked at me and grinned. And yesterday, my biggest worry was a few days of abstinence because Naomi was in town! Never mind. I had work to do. I tried to ignore the grins around me, and when I couldn't, I pretended not to be upset.

The work was almost enough to take my mind off anything. I read Zeller's file. And read it again. He was a professional, and good. He was also a class-A nut-job. His prison record suggested he hadn't been real stable lately. He usually got his target in the first thirty-six hours. If this dragged on much beyond that, well, things might escalate. I thought Megan had been right to bait him out and try to take him. The sooner we ended this, the better.

We were hoping that Zeller would make his move before the speech. We had a transparent shield up in front of the podium, making it hard to hit him during, while, at the same time, we created a few opportunities during the early evening. Not too many--we didn't want to be obvious. But we had the docks saturated with officers in plane clothes just waiting for the right moment.

By seven-thirty, there was just one 'opportunity' left, and Zeller still hadn't struck. We swept the area for bombs, in case his employer had changed agents: nothing. We had searched the surrounding buildings: nothing again. Was he just not going to bite? At last Simon gave the go-ahead for the last attempt to draw him out. Simon and Megan got the bait ready while I went down to join the crowd outside. Zeller would have to be here--all the buildings overlooking the speaker's platform had been sealed off and all our officers in place were checking in. He had to be in the crowd. Had to be.

Sandburg followed me down. The crowd was loud and shifting. It was made mostly of excited longshoremen, but the rest were reporters wearing too much perfume and flashing bright lights around. Finding Zeller in this would be hard. "All right," Blair said, "you know he's not going to make it easy on you, so, uh, you should probably start by trying to isolate sounds."

I flinched. "I know what to do, Chief, all right? I know the drill. You don't have to quote me chapter and verse. Why don't you save that for your interviews?" I made myself ignore the sharp smell of his hurt. Everyone was hurting; pain was no big deal. I moved away from him. A little voice inside me pointed out that while I didn't need Blair's help to search, in a crowd like this, with so many distractions and so many bystanders around, I did need him to anchor me and watch my back. I ignored the little voice, too, and put more physical distance between us.

Damn him. Damn me for needing him.

God--I was on duty. We had work to do. I took a deep breath, but we had a number of plants in the crowd who were carrying. The scent of gun cleaner was no help. My eyes flipped from face to face, useless, surely; Zeller must be wearing a disguise. But with my eyes moving, my ears could focus more easily on different parts of the crowd. The whirr of cameras. The hum of electronics. People talking. Some guy with a persistent sneeze. A round chambering--shit, that was it! Where, where?

A searing light flashed in my eyes, and suddenly the entire crowd seemed to surge toward me. "Hey! It's the sentinel!" There were bodies everywhere, pushing me back. I couldn't slide between them, couldn't lever them out of the way. As soon as I was free of one, another two took its place. I didn't have time for this, damn it! Zeller was here!

I retreated and tripped, loosing my balance. The crowd kept coming. I expected to be buried under them, carried down by their moving weight, but suddenly the pressure of the mob was gone. Even before I looked up, I realized that Blair had planted himself in front of me and was shoving people back, yelling at them to leave me alone. He wasn't amazingly successful, but I had a moment to take a breath, to regain my balance--

The sound of a gunshot made the crowd freeze--and then surge in random directions. The screams deafened me in a way the gunshot had not and the reek of sudden panic made me blanch. I staggered and then climbed onto the platform, hoping to gain some height. I was looking for a man running and carrying a gun. But everyone was running, and the only guns I saw were in the hands of cops.

Oh, shit. We'd lost him.

Half an hour later, we'd found nothing but the spent cartridge, crushed by many feet. It wasn't standard issue, but that wasn't immediately helpful. We fell back to Bartley's office and went with one of our contingency plans: We shipped him out as his own body and pretended that he was dead. If we couldn't catch Zeller, at least we could keep the target alive.

We didn't get home until almost midnight. There were six messages from Stephen and two from Dad on the machine. I sent Blair up to bed, and spent half an hour on the balcony calming Stephen down and convincing him to talk to dad for me. When I came in, I slept on the couch.

The next morning, while we were seizing the files of Gunderson Shipping, Megan and I interrupted an armed robbery taking place across the street. The perp recognized me. He asked for my autograph.

The day just went downhill. I holed up in operations with Megan and we made some progress on the case against Gunderson, but every time I stuck my nose out the door, somebody in the hall gave me a big grin and pointedly did not tease me about the sentinel thing. Blair was working on the same case, but from another room down the hall. We did not speak for the rest of the day.

At home, we had another fight. Of course we did: Blair just could never leave things alone. The bottom line was, however, that--no matter what else happened--as soon as he publicly acknowledged that he had studied a sentinel, any idiot with half an hour of free time could figure out it was me. I could never have been hidden. Anything else was just...weaseling.

"Jim, if I had had more time, I could have done some misdirection. Found another subject or two--"

"And we both know how well that worked out last time!"

It just got worse from there. Naomi tried to play peacemaker, but nothing she could say could give me my life back. Since home turned out to be such a poor refuge, I stormed out. I didn't come back until after eleven. Blair and Naomi were already in bed. I slept on the couch, and left before either of them got up.

When I got to the station Simon wanted to see me. He was catching hell from upstairs, and he didn't know what to do. I just wanted it all to go away...even though I knew there was no way that could happen now. I sighed.

Simon had even worse news. He showed me a picture taken the night before at the rally. It showed me, not five feet away from a man who was clearly Klaus Zeller. He was in disguise, but from this angle, it was obviously him. Simon sighed, "You were that close until your paparazzi got in the way."

Just five feet, and I'd lost him. Jesus. Could it get any worse?

The air popped, and the sound of glass cracking on either side of me made me jump. I didn't smell the blood until after I'd already turned and seen Simon going down. I dropped down after him, as much to get to Simon as to take cover. His heart was pounding, pushing out huge amounts of blood, and when I called him he only shuddered in response. I screamed for help, looking for the wound...low on his side, an entry wound and an exit wound.

"Oh my God." Joel was standing in the doorway. Beyond him, the bullpen had been tumbled into chaos. I could dimly smell blood that wasn't Simon's. Someone else had been hit. Beneath my hands, Simon whimpered.

Zeller got away from us again. We sent a team to the building across the street, but of course he was long gone. Simon and Megan were taken to the hospital. Both of them needed surgery. Simon had lost a lot of blood.

Resolutely, I turned back to the case. I couldn't help either of them, my friends, the only two people besides Blair who had known about this damn sentinel thing.

God damn it! If I hadn't lost Zeller--

We didn't get a break until late that afternoon, when Joel called to say he had an address and a time. He'd gotten a tip that Zeller was meeting a custom arms dealer on West Vine St. Before we could close on it, though, the building went up in a showy fireball. The explosion was hot, and wouldn't have left much behind if the fire department hadn't acted so quickly. Even so, the gun and pawn shop was gutted. It was nearly six before arson had a preliminary report: the explosion hadn't been an accident, but who had set it and who was to have been the target was still anybody's guess. Ditto the identity of the body inside, although, since Joel and I had seen Zeller go in, chances were good that it was him.

While we were still kicking it around, Rafe called, "Hey, guys! Sandburg's on TV. He's giving some kind of press conference."

I wanted to run, but there was no place to run to, and no way to escape what I would be running from. With leaden feet I followed Joel into the sixth floor briefing room. Someone had turned the television up, and a crowd was gathering. They looked from the screen to me and whispered. A numbness began to creep over me, and I wondered if I could zone on purpose. Perhaps I could pay attention to Joel's heartbeat next to me, or to the rush of water in the pipes in the walls and somehow miss whatever it was Blair was going to say to the world. I held my breath.

And Blair was introduced. And Blair came on. And Blair lied. What he said...was so far from the truth that I almost couldn't understand what he was talking about. But that's what it was--Blair was lying. With details. And explanations. And a confession of unethical behavior.

He lied.

He ripped everything apart. Unraveled his work, his findings, his evidence. It was quick--so fast I could hardly follow--but when he was done, there was nothing left.

There was a roaring in my ears and I was still holding my breath. Around me, the crowd began to break up, looking at me with sympathy or looking away in embarrassment.

He lied.

My eyes met Joel's. Joel wasn't looking either embarrassed or sympathetic. He was looking at me like I was a witness he was still trying to classify as either 'suspect' or 'bystander.' I fled before he could ask, and ran into a convenient diversion in the form of Bartley, who had decided it was safe to come out of hiding. After all, Zeller was dead. Think of the publicity!

Fine. Whatever. Later. I got away from them as quickly as I could. I knew where I'd find Blair. Hoped I'd find him....

He'd gone back to the hospital. They were just bringing Simon back from some surgery. He looked like hell. So did Blair.

I thought suddenly of all those other sentinels Blair had hoped to find. The ones nobody believed in but him. Dozens or hundreds or thousands of people like me, whom Blair had wanted to help.... After years of teachers and peers telling him he was chasing after a myth, to be on the verge of proving, once and for all, that he was right--

And he'd done it so spectacularly. He'd not only made it all go away, he'd unraveled things so completely that not one shred of his own dignity remained. He'd abandoned not only what he'd been offered, but everything he already had.

I found I still couldn't say...anything. So, even though he had already said everything, Blair saved us from the awkward silence by giving me a report on Simon. It was good news. My amazing failure hadn't gotten my friends killed. Things could have been so much worse.

"So. I heard you guys probably got Zeller," Blair said casually.

"I don't know. Somebody probably got him." I forced myself to answer him, trying to sound calm and normal. "We've still got Bartley to contend with. I don't know which one's worse." I tried to smile, but it wasn't working. Nothing was normal, and I wasn't calm. I wanted to say--everything! I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I wanted things back the way they were, that I still believed. I wanted to say, 'I knew you loved me. I just didn't know you _understood_.' I didn't want to talk shop, I wanted--"I saw your press conference."

He flinched and mumbled something, before he collected himself and looked at me levelly. "It was just a book."

"It was your life."

A flash of pain. "Yeah, it was." He wouldn't look at me. "You were right. I mean... I don't know what I was expecting to do with it, and, uh--" he glanced at me fleetingly. "Where do I get off following you around for three years pretending I was a cop, right?" Another lie. The last shred of his accomplishments unraveled, here, for me alone: I had never needed him; he had never helped me. He looked up, wondering if it was enough yet, wondering if I had understood....wondering if I would forgive him.

It was more than enough: I had only wanted my life back. I hadn't wanted him to throw away his to show me that he wanted me more than he wanted to be an anthropologist. Now he was denying the last remaining achievement and laying it at my feet. Not that I could really blame him for thinking I was insecure enough to want him to say I'd never needed him. But I wasn't. I had never seen him humble, and I didn't like it. "You might have been just an observer, but you were the best cop I've ever met...and the best partner I could have ever asked for." He looked at me then, finally. Maybe it had been a mistake, wanting to see his eyes. I wasn't prepared for his pain or for so much love. "You've been a great friend and you've pulled me through some pretty weird stuff."

"Thanks," he whispered. We stood together in the hospital hallway, the wreck of our lives still in little pieces around us, but--finally--holding onto each other.

It occurred to me that we might be able to get through this if we stuck together. "Are you ready to get busy?"

He swayed slightly, blinking. And then he nodded.

The situation in Major Crime had changed only a little while I was gone. Bartley had moved into Simon's office and was screaming into Simon's phone, trying to throw together his resurrection extravaganza at the last minute. He wanted fireworks and a marching band.

The coroner's office called. The body they had didn't match Zeller. It matched our other unaccounted for party--Haber, the store owner. Well. That was going to rain on Bartley's parade. Hell. Wasn't doing a lot for mine, either.

I went to Simon's office to tell Bartley that the party was off. Too late, as it turned out. Zeller was here. There was just time to scream a warning and throw myself on top of Bartley before hell descended in a storm of falling glass and flying bullets. Zeller had automatic weapons. They fired in all directions, the roar of gunfire mixing with the shattering glass and the scream of fracturing concrete. As the echoes of this first assault faded, I pushed Bartley toward the back of Simon's office, and crept back toward the window. Smell was useless--spent powder blotted out everything out but blood.

People were yelling, scrambling for doors. I could hear crying, too. My ears were ringing, and it took me a couple of seconds to find Blair by sound. He was across the bullpen, down by the floor. Franticly, I searched for Zeller. I didn't know the sound of him, not well, but he didn't seem to be anywhere close.

Without warning, Zeller appeared again, in the central hallway. He fired through the doorway, a fully automatic in each hand making a steady sideways hail of bullets. He screamed for Bartley, barely audible over the sound of the shots and the cracking of wood and plaster and concrete.

I dove out the doorway and tumbled through the copy room to the west corridor. In another moment, Zeller had emptied his weapons. He was making no attempt to be quiet, to take cover. I rose carefully. The window in front of me still had its glass, and the blinds were nearly closed. I centered my aim on the sound of him and squeezed. I fired, five shots in quick succession. Zeller slammed into the floor.

I was panting silently, so hopped up on adrenaline that the world around me seemed sharp and crisp and a good distance away. I listened past the roaring in my ears and the pounding of my own heart. Silence. Mostly. On the other side of the far wall, Zeller was down on the floor, reloading. I dove around the corner as he opened fire again.

Shit. Shit. He wasn't following. The footsteps were heading the other way. I spun and ran after him, but I was too far behind. He was going to get away from me again.

Like hell he was.

I could hear him. I could smell him. I followed his bright trail to the stairwell and ran up after him. The lock on the door to the roof had been eaten out with some kind of acid that made me gag. I burst through the door and dove for cover amid the boxy components of the air handler. Zeller fired in my direction. He had dropped the machine guns, but still had a sidearm. The shots went wide, just cover, meant to keep me still while he did something else. I could hear him manipulating something that jingled. I hoped it wasn't a bomb.

"You missed Bartley again!" I called.

He paused in his hurried fumbling. "You're lying."

"It might be time to consider another career."

His answer was another round. Something slammed into my left leg, hard enough to drop me and spin me around. The pain was no worse than being hit with a small rock, but when I reached down my hands came away bloody. I'd been shot.

On the other side of the room there was a creak of equipment and Zeller dropped over the side. Oh, God, he was getting away. I tried to get to my feet, but I barely managed an awkward scramble that nearly dumped me on my face.

"Jim! Jim, are you all right?" Blair threw himself down beside me, his eyes widening as he took in the blood. He steadied me with his hands.

I pushed him away. We didn't have time to take care of me. "I'm all right. Zeller went over the edge!"

He snorted. "Yeah, no kidding."

"No, I mean he went _over_ \--" I gave up and used Blair as a lever to push myself onto my feet. "Give me a hand." Blair had to half-carry me to the edge. By the time we made it, Zeller was a good two stories down and dropping quickly. I was in no shape to start down after him; if he wouldn't surrender, I was going to have to fire on him. Even as I realized that I had no choice, Zeller looked up and met my eyes, coming to the same conclusion. He raised his handgun.

Blair and I jumped backward, and the report of Zeller's gun chased after us. In the open, the shots didn't resonate, and in the quiet after them I heard something else--a high reverberation and the sound of slicing air. I peeked back over the side in time to see the broken safety line whipping back and forth as it dropped after its burden. It hit the ground right after Zeller's body.

I couldn't doubt that he was dead, but I couldn't believe it. I'd heard the bones crunch into little pieces. I'd heard the burst and squish as his internal organs pulped. But it had ended so quickly. Almost in the middle. How could Klaus Zeller have stopped? Nothing stopped him.

I stared at the body. I could smell the blood, now. I could smell shit....

"Jim? Jim? Come on, buddy. Let's get you inside." Blair was gently tugging me back. I turned my head to look at him. He seemed a little wild and smelled like frantic adrenaline. I opened my mouth and shut it. "Jim? Come with me, ok?"

We made slow progress. I staggered against him. My left leg didn't want to take my weight and I was dizzy.

The door to the stairs flew open and six guys from SWAT flew out. I gestured feebly toward the edge--and lurched against Sandburg as I lost my balance. The SWAT guys fanned out behind us, chattering busily into their radios and securing the scene. Too late. Way too late.

The stairs were hell. Even with Blair on one side and the rail on the other, each jarring step sent a spear of pain up and down the left side of my body. I kept moving. I could hardly see for the pain, but Blair was steering us anyway. We were doing fine. There was a little problem, in that it was getting harder to hold onto him for some reason, and my hand was beginning to slip on the rail, but we were doing fine.

Then we stopped, which was not fine. "Oh," Blair panted. "God. Joel. Thank God."

"Where's Zeller?"

Blair gulped. "He fell off the roof--"

"What?"

Blair couldn't answer. I was falling on him, and he was folding under me. A solid hand on my biceps caught me. "Blair--Oh Lord, there's blood. Jim?"

"His leg, Joel. He's been shot--"

"Let's get him off the stairs." Joel was under me suddenly, and we were moving again. "We need some help here!" The world around me spun, and for a moment there was nothing but dizziness and pain. When things steadied, I was lying on my back, looking up at a piercingly bright florescent light. There were hands on me, not Blair's. They were strong and rapid, but I couldn't flinch away. "Where else is he hit, Blair? Jim? Can you hear me?"

"Just his leg, but he's lost a lot of blood, and I think...the pain got away from him."

"There's no exit wound. Jim, can you...Jim? Aw, no." Joel called for help again. I could see him now. He was covered in blood and bits of broken glass glittered in his hair. "Is there a head wound, Blair? He isn't tracking right."

"No. I'm pretty sure. Wait--Joel, not yet."

I wondered _what_ was not yet.

"Let me--I have to...Jim? Listen, can you breathe for me? Joel has to put pressure on that wound." Blair had my hand. I held on tight. "That's good. I knew you were in there. Jim, can you picture the dial for pain?" I thought dial and managed a nod. He leaned in and whispered, "I love you, Jim. I'm right here."

"Blair--" Joel said.

"Ready," I gasped.

Blair sat up. "Now, Joel."

I wasn't ready. The pain expanded out from just below my knee, filling every part of my body. Or maybe, I just lost all the parts of me that weren't in pain. Bright agony blotted out the dial in my mind, Blair's voice in my ear. I tried to breathe properly, and could not find my lungs at all. Blair was going to be really pissed if I stopped breathing again. Sorry....

The pain receded like a wave sliding back from the shore. The undertow nearly took me with it, but I could hear Blair again. He was repeating over and over that I was fine, that help was coming, that I could do this. I blinked at his fuzzy image above me and tried to answer him. He shushed me and told me to breathe.

"Blair--"

"It's all right, Joel. We're fine. Just keep the pressure steady."

"Blair, this isn't--"

"Damn it, Joel, panicking isn't going to help him. He just can't focus, is all."

I stared up at the light and thought about my hand, still trapped between both of Blair's. Blair's hands were warm and soft. There wasn't any pain there.

"It didn't have anything to do with me at all," Joel said.

Blair freed one hand and began to wiggle out of his jacket. "What didn't?"

"That time with Finkelman. You were worried something would happen. It had nothing to do with me."

Blair switched hands and took the jacket the rest of the way off. "We could have done a lot worse than you, believe me," he said absently, and laid the jacket over me. "That ok, Jim?"

It was then that I realized that I was shivering.

"You were never studying him," Joel whispered. "Any more than you were studying us."

"Joel--" Blair's voice broke, and he paused. "What do you want me to say? That it was all a lie? That I've fucked up everything?"

"Why. I want...why, Blair?"

"He wanted to be normal, Joel," Blair whispered bitterly. "But no. I thought I knew better."

The EMTs arrived in a stampede of civil service shoes and shouting. They pulled Blair away, and for a moment I lost him in the bustle and noise. "Easy. Easy, Jim. I'm right here. I'm going to watch them like hawks. We've done this before. It's going to be fine." His whisper was an anchor I oriented to. Blair wasn't touching me any more, but he was near. He would take care of everything. "Just relax. It's going to be fine."

It wasn't fine. The man who replaced Joel at my leg had hands like claws of steel. Every time he touched me, it was like being hit with a bat. The guy at my head shouted and reeked of coffee and tuna. The IV needle felt like a drill bit. I kept losing my fix on Blair.

They didn't let him ride in the ambulance. There wasn't room. I had to share with a guy from Fraud who had broken his arm during the mad crush in the stairs. In the treatment room of the ER, I tried to listen for Blair. Sometimes I seemed to hear him, talking a constant stream of comfort. I listened for him and lost him, over and over. I lost him in the pain... and the cacophony of voices and machines that filled the hospital...and a fuzziness that kept rising up in my head and pulling me under.

I was still listening for his voice when I found his hand. It was knotted in mine, his thumb working rhythmically against my index finger. My eyes popped open.

"Hey," he said softly. "Look who's awake."

I shut my eyes against the searing light and opened my mouth to ask what was going on. I threw up instead, bitter mucus and bile and the remains of the jelly doughnut I had for lunch. Surprised, I tried to turn my head to spit it out, but my body was too heavy to move.

Blair caught my shoulder and hauled me over onto my side. I heaved into a little blue dish, while Blair kept me from falling into it. While he settled me again and wiped my face, he called a nurse.

My body was heavy and thick, unwilling to respond. I let the nurse do what she wanted and was glad when she was gone. "Blair?" I called. My voice made no noise.

"Right here. You're ok. The worst is over."

"Waz worse?" I gasped.

Blair's hands played over my hair. "You kept fighting the anesthetic," he said. "You woke up twice while they were digging out the bullet."

Oh. Worse, yes.

He slipped a tiny piece of ice between my lips. "Just rest. It's ok."

Ok? I could remember Joel covered in blood. I saw Brown go down. I saw Dills go down.

"Jim? How's the pain?"

"No pain," I mouthed. Blair gave me another bit of ice. "Who'd we lose?"

"What? Jim--?"

"Who?" I cleared my throat. "Who's hurt? Joel?"

"Joel's ok. He's taking Brian home...He got hit by the glass. He had more than a dozen stitches." He stopped, thinking. "Brown's ok. Rhonda's ok. Bartley's fine--we have that. Smith is still in surgery, maybe..."

"Dills?"

"I don't know." He squeezed my hand, hard. "Jim, don't start. It wasn't your fault. The CPD did its job. It protected Zeller's target. Nobody's ever done that before. Nobody knew he'd react like this."

But I had. Of course Zeller would put his personal grudges aside till the work was finished. And if the work couldn't _be_ finished, well, of course that would be too much for him.

"Jim. Everybody thought he was dead. Everybody."

I nodded, weakly. Blair sighed and leaned down to lay his cheek next to mine. I squeezed his hand.

The nurse came in again, promising they would move me to a room soon. Blair gave me more ice. I tried to relax. "Dad's here," I said, identifying a voice I'd been hearing in the hall.

"Yeah. And Stephen." He paused. "Your dad's pretty mad."

I nodded. So was Stephen. But Stephen was arguing Dad out of having Blair removed, I supposed because he knew that my relationship with Blair wasn't strictly professional. He was explaining that I was over thirty and old enough to make my own decisions.

"He's doing a lousy job of it. Involving himself with Sandburg--"

"First of all, the last I heard, you thought he was ok--"

"The situation--"

"And second, even if working with Blair was that bad a choice, Jim is old enough to fuck up his own life if he wants to. It's none of our business."

I laughed, which turned into coughing and nearly another round with the vomit basin. "Go tell them I'm fine," I said at last. "Tell them if I need any help fucking up my life, they'll be the first people I invite."

"Uh, Jim?"

"Say that, say that. Go." I laughed silently to myself, wondering if it was the anesthetic that was making me so fuzzy. I was asleep before Blair got back.

The next afternoon, Blair took me home. AMA, but forget that. I was safer outside of a hospital. They didn't even have to make a mistake--they could do everything perfectly, and still accidentally kill me with a dietary supplement. Besides, what could they do for me after getting the bullet out? Pain killers? I couldn't take most of their narcotics anyway. Bed rest? Blair even had Naomi to help keep me immobile. Observation? I would really rather not be observed by strangers, thanks. And if I got an infection, I knew where the clinic was.

So Blair took me home and put me in his bed under the loft. The press followed us and camped outside, but that night there was a small oil spill in the bay which led to a vicious free for all of blame and historic grievances between Cyclops Oil and the Port Authority with three separate environmental groups chiming in for fun. By the afternoon of the second day after the attack on the PD, I was reasonably alert again, and our horde of press had dispersed to go after bigger game. Blair was able to slip out to the store. He brought me steak.

Blair helped me out to the table to eat. He'd wanted me to stay in bed, but I was getting fed up by then. It was a small room, and even half asleep I was bored. He'd been right though. I wasn't ready for sitting. Halfway through dinner, the pain hit. Crap, I thought. We had an audience. Naomi was right there. But Blair behaved no differently than he did when we were in the bedroom alone. He took both my hands and squatted before me, murmuring. "Just breathe. Ok. You can go a little faster."

Muscle spasm, a cramp as much as that tearing feeling just below my left knee that had come and gone for the last two days. "Jim, pay attention. You're not counting." He raised his voice slightly. "Mom, would you bring the big pillow?"

It was embarrassing to be knotted up with pain like that in front of somebody. Worse, that anyone should see the exercises we did for pain management. They were personal. They were private. They were looney as all hell.

Naomi acted like Blair squatting beside me and helping me pant while he mumbled about things I was supposed to be imagining was no big deal. It was only as she slid the pillow under my leg to help straighten the knee that I realized that she wasn't acting. She looked at my leg thoughtfully and said: "I think he's too tired to hold a visualization properly. You should be using acupressure."

"I can't teach him to use acupressure on himself. Not for something like this. He needs to be able to control his own pain."

"I don't disagree, and I'm not trying to meddle in your work. But you can see his energy is all unfocused. There's no way he...."

I didn't hear the rest because I was laughing. The pain was still so bad that tears were threatening, but I laughed anyway. It scared Sandburg, who promptly wrestled me out of the chair and onto the floor. He nested me in pillows, and then he and his mother....did something. I wasn't sure what. But I woke up about an hour later, still on the floor, but with the pain substantially blunted.

The next day was better. I slept and ate. On Monday, I was up on crutches. Blair drove me to the hospital where he let me off to go see Simon. While I was visiting there, Blair went to do some shopping for Megan. She'd been sent home on Saturday.

Simon looked good. He smelled like antibiotics and pain pills, but he was fairly lucid. He wanted my report of what went down Thursday evening. Neither of us was cleared to work, but I gave it to him anyway. When I finished, we sat in silence for a while. Finally, Simon said, "The international law enforcement community is singing our praises over our brilliant handling of the Zeller situation. The commissioner got a telegram from the head of Interpol congratulating him."

"That's a crock of shit," I said. The man had shot his own jump line.

"It's hard to picture what we could have done worse, actually."

"Well. Bartley is alive. Zeller never broke a contract before. Frankly, the only real mistake we made is when I lost Zeller at the rally. The department--"

"Bull. The entire damn department missed him at the rally, not just you. It was a mistake to think we could bait him into the open like that. We were hot-dogging. My ass should be fired."

I blinked. "Is it?"

"They're talking promotion."

"Ah." We sat for a few minutes. A nurse came with Simon's pills. He took them without complaint.

"How's Sandburg?"

"Ok. Mostly." I sighed. "He got some calls this weekend. I don't know what about. He won't talk about it. I think he let Stephen hire him a lawyer. I hope he won't need it, but..."

"What's he going to do?"

"Next? I don't...know. We haven't talked much."

"What do you want?"

"Simon, you know he's an asset to the department--"

"I didn't ask about that. I asked what you wanted."

My mouth opened and shut. "I want him," I whispered at last. "I don't want to work without him. I can't..."

"Well," Simon said. "Let's see what we can do."

When Blair picked me up half an hour later, I was exhausted. The trip back down to the lobby had taken about all I had. Damn, I must be getting old. He nearly had to lift me into the truck. I sat back and closed my eyes, letting the shape of my breaths ease the pain away. "How's Megan?" I asked at last.

"Ok. The usual. You know. Disappointed that she missed out on the waterworks."

"Waterworks?"

A chuckle. "Yeah. Apparently good ol' Bartley climbed into Simon's closet and pissed himself."

I laughed. "How sad."

Naomi was out when we got home. It would be a good time to talk privately. There was a lot we hadn't processed, things I hadn't said, things I hadn't asked him. But getting across the living room to the couch was about all I could handle. I fell into the seat with a grunt and closed my eyes.

"You ok?" Blair asked softly.

I reached up and caught his arm and hauled him down beside me. I didn't trust myself to speak. I couldn't even remember what I'd already said, and what I was just assuming he knew.

He turned toward me, coming up onto his knees. "Hey. Hey. Easy. Can you tell me about it?"

I shook my head.

He wrapped his arms around me and put his head on my shoulder. I pulled him closer and let myself relax. I would just rest for a minute, and then we'd talk. We'd straighten everything out.

When I woke up, the sun was setting and Naomi was in the kitchen making homemade soup. Blair was on the balcony, talking into a portable phone. I could hear him easily, but the voice on the other end was tiny and heavily accented, and I didn't have the energy to fight with my hearing. "No," Blair was saying, "I don't care. I just want it to go away. Do whatever you need to....Great....Thank you, I mean that." He hung up and came in, smiling when he saw I was awake. "The lawyer. It's all cool. We sent him a copy of the return email Sid sent Mom--the one where he says it arrived and he doesn't mind looking it over and giving me some pointers. They can't claim I 'submitted' it to them. Don't worry. It's all going to go away."

I'm sorry, I thought, not sure how to say it.

Blair sat beside me. "Do you want to talk to the lawyer yourself?"

I shook my head. My leg ached and my best friend smelled empty and depressed and I wanted my life back. Blair turned me so that I was lying down on the couch with my leg up. I sighed as my eyes closed again.

The next day Dad and Stephen came to visit. I heard them in the hall, but I didn't make it to the living room in time to warn Naomi to pretend we weren't home. She invited them in. She offered them coffee. She explained that Blair had gone shopping, and that he would be very disappointed that he had missed them.

I sat stiffly on the couch, while Stephen took the loveseat and Dad the chair. Naomi put the coffee down and then exclaimed that she had an appointment to get her hair cut and she was sorry to have to rush away. "No, no," I mouthed franticly.

Naomi leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. "You'll be all right, won't you Jim? Blair won't be too long." She smiled benevolently and went to get her umbrella. What was it with these Sandburgs? They were fine--wonderful, reliable people, until your family showed up. Then they just cheerfully tossed you to the wolves!

Blair and I were going to have to have a talk. Sadly, it looked like Dad and I were going to have a talk first.

There was an awkward silence until the door shut behind Naomi. Dad took a swallow from his coffee and braced himself, but I didn't think what he said was what he'd meant to say. "Jimmy, I--I would have come to see you in the hospital, but you checked out before everyone expected."

Even this was an accusation. What did he think, that Blair had kidnapped me? "I'm better off at home, Dad, in an environment that isn't intolerable and where Blair and I can control what goes into my body."

He blinked at that. He seemed surprised. "What?" Stephen asked.

"When Jimmy was small...he had his tonsils out. There were," he paused, "complications. I didn't connect it with his--gifts--before." He snorted. "I had the hospital investigated for negligence."

Stephen glanced at me. "Really?"

I shrugged. "I don't remember it." But it was vaguely familiar. I might be able to remember if I tried, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be pleasant.

"Jimmy, I realize--"

"I'm sorry about all of this. What we put you both through." Preemptive apology. Maybe it would work, and we could end this quickly.

"Son, this wasn't your fault. I realize that you need...specialized help...in order to manage your gifts. But--son, your options aren't limited to Blair Sandburg. We can work something out. I have _resources_."

I blinked. "Really? What? Even assuming I was willing to consider," I couldn't say the words 'replacing Blair,' "There are no other sentinel experts. Nobody else even believes in it."

"I understood that you...pretty well had a handle on things. Enough that we could make do for a while."

"I do. That's not the point."

I smelled frustration and anger on him, but Dad only said carefully, "Jimmy, we're here to help. Whatever it is you need. You're not dependant on that--"

"Whatever you're going to say, don't."

"What he did to you was unforgivable!"

Stephen quickly got up and came to sit beside me. "Dad. It was an accident. Blair would never, ever deliberately hurt Jim."

Dad backed off. I wondered what he and Stephen had been up to these last few days. "All right. All right. But you may not get a choice. He's finished with his research now. He might take off, since he's finished. You need to consider some options--"

"He had enough information for his dissertation over a year ago. He could have left, if he wanted to. He stayed for me."

"Jimmy," he said reasonably. Too reasonably. I couldn't take it any more.

"Dad, believe me, you do not want to have this conversation."

"Son, I just want to help you."

"You picked a hell of a time to start!"

"Don't you--"

The door opened. Blair came in with canvas grocery bags dangling from both arms. He looked at me. He looked at Dad and Stevie and back at Dad. He put the groceries down on the counter and said casually, "Jim. Hi. I didn't know we had company. Can I get you guys anything?" He was polite, but he was shooting me worried looks.

"No, they were just leaving."

So they went. Stevie promised to call. Dad swallowed his anger and nicely said good-bye to Blair.

Blair paused only to put the frozen food in the freezer and then came over to sit beside me on the couch. "You ok?"

"Yeah."

"They give you a hard time?"

"He's a controlling bastard. He never understood what was really important."

Blair blinked. "Did you tell him what was important?"

"Well...no."

A sigh. "I'm sorry, Jim."

"Don't you dare--don't you--" I stopped. It _hurt_. Not the pain in my leg, but deeper than that, and worse. I closed my eyes. We had lost so much privacy. So much safety. I had pushed him so hard in my panic and my anger, so hard that he'd thought there was only one way to reach me. How could he forgive me for this?

He kissed my temple. His lips were light and soft and reassuring. I sighed. "I love you," I said.

"We'll get through this," he promised. But he didn't sound like he believed it. We might have talked, then, but the phone rang. It was Simon. And after that Naomi came home.

The next morning, Blair was already gone when I woke up. I could hear Naomi meditating in the living room. I could hear the water in the pipes. I could count the hamsters downstairs rustling in their cage. One less than the last time I'd noticed. It all seemed very quiet without Blair.

The phone rang, sounding way too loud. That hadn't happened for, oh, months. It was Beverly Sanchez. There was a rumor, apparently, that Paul Jacobs was going to appeal his conviction for his part in the whole Golden business. All the various charges against him had brought in a sentence of thirty years.

"Why?" I asked.

"He claims you had an unfair advantage which violated his civil rights."

Unfair advantage. The case I worked blind. "He can't...he can't support that."

There was a short pause. "Jim, my professional opinion is he won't get a new trial. So far, every single piece of evidence against him has a solid paper trail, and we were hip deep in eye-witnesses. It's going to get thrown out." Another pause. " _This_ one is going to get thrown out." _What he saw was impossible. Unless you're trying to tell me he can see things nobody else can._

I had no answer for that.

"There are precedents. A couple of years ago, there was a notorious case in Seattle--that kidnapping, you remember--some of the evidence was found by a psychic. It was a successful prosecution, Jim. Nobody said anything about unfair advantage."

"Damn," I said.

"Jim, did you break procedure on the Golden investigation?"

"No."

"Didn't violate anybody's Miranda? No search of property or persons without a warrant or probable cause? No--"

"No!"

"It's all in your report?"

"I think so, yes." Everything but smelling the drug on the pizza, and that had no bearing on the case except to reduce the number of assault charges connected with doctoring it. No one else had eaten any.

I was angry. Absolutely furious. Jacobs was a greedy slimeball who was happy to make his money either making weapons or selling poison to children. He'd been caught, practically buried in evidence, and here he was, trying to squirm out of the consequences, looking for any weakness. And having spotted a weakness, he wouldn't give it up, not even now that the existence of sentinels had been publicly repudiated. I wondered how many others there would be.

"--really anything to worry about," Beverly was saying. "The evidence is absolutely solid, and his own partner confessed and testified against him. I think we'll be ok here. I just wanted to check with you."

She promised to keep me updated. We said good-bye and hung up. Slowly I got up and hobbled into the outer room. "Where's Blair?"

"He had some business left at the university. Some books he had on reserve at the library. Some kind of financial aid exit interview. Some boxes he'd left in Dr. Mais' office."

Oh. I sighed and sat down at the table. "Naomi, we need to talk."

She took a seat across from me, her hands folded and still like a butterfly pausing.

"Simon and I are going to offer Blair a job," I said.

She blinked. "What kind of job?"

"As a cop, Naomi."

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Good. Thank you."

It was not the response I'd expected. "You're ok with this?"

Her hands twisted restlessly. "Right now Blair feels like he failed at everything. I think...I think what you're doing will be very good for him."

"Naomi, I--" But I had no idea what to say.

"You know, he used to talk about sentinels all the time. He was always tracking down stories or myths, talking about different methods for testing and measuring sensory acuity, reading about the way the human brain processes input. Always. I never got a phone call that sentinels didn't come up.

"And then he started working with the police, and he never talked about the research. He talked about _cases_ sometimes, a little, and he seemed to enjoy the work. He--he certainly enjoyed the people he worked with. But he never talked about his study or papers he'd read on the topic or interviews or theory. And I'd thought the sentinel research was taking too long or it wasn't panning out and he'd had to go with some second choice he didn't really care about."

She looked down, her hands still working back and forth. "That's why I was so happy to hear he'd finished a draft. I thought, 'well, once he finally gets the degree, he can go back to the work he wants to be doing.' Only--"

"He'd stopped talking about sentinels because it was a secret."

She nodded. "He was _doing_ the work he wanted to do. And now he thinks he screwed it up, but it wasn't him--"

We sat in silence for a few minutes. "He'll be a _good_ cop," I said at last, even though I was pretty sure she would not find that reassuring.

Naomi shook her head sadly. "He won't carry a gun. I know him. But he needs to hear this offer. He needs to know that he did it right, that somebody believes in him."

The phone rang again before I could digest this. I picked it up, trying to focus on what Simon was saying. "Yes," I said. "Yes, we can be there."

"What is it?" Naomi asked as I put the receiver down.

"That was Simon. Joel called him to say that Blair was in the basement of the PD cleaning out his locker. Simon wants to do it now, make the offer. Joel is going to keep him at the station until we all get there." I started for the door and winced, regretting it. The pain had dropped to barely noticeable over the last couple of days, but the muscles weren't up to quick movement. Naomi retrieved the cane I'd left beside the bed and handed me my jacket.

We drove over in Naomi's little hatchback with the Save the Whales bumper sticker and arrived just as Rafe pulled up with Megan. Simon was already waiting in the lobby. We stuffed our crowd into an elevator and made it upstairs in time to catch Sandburg and Joel in Simon's office.

When we made the offer, well he received it very gracefully. He seemed genuinely pleased. He smiled. He smelled happy. He teased, I teased. Everything seemed great.

Except he thanked Simon too seriously. Except he snatched a moment alone with Naomi and whispered a thank you and told her he loved her and said that he needed some time alone with me. Except he hugged Megan and Joel as we left. I began to worry that maybe Naomi was right. Maybe he wouldn't accept.

The impromptu party broke up pretty quickly. Simon was tired, and the rest of Major Crime was running short staffed. I offered to take Blair and Naomi out for lunch, but she said she needed to pack up and get on the road, and Blair said, 'thank you' but he thought I should probably get off the leg for a while.

By four O'clock, we were alone in the loft.

Blair stood for a long moment looking at the door he had closed behind him after walking his mother down to her car, and then turned around and said brightly, "Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine."

"How's the leg?"

I was sitting sideways on the couch with it stretched out in front of me. It was deeply sore and tired, but better. I shrugged, "Ok."

He came toward me slowly and squatted down beside the couch. His eyes were loving, but his smell was sad. "You aren't going to take it," I said.

He shook his head. "I can't."

I swallowed. "Naomi said you wouldn't carry." I had been warned. It was my own fault, for letting myself hope.

Blair smiled slightly. "I think I could, actually. Poor Mom."

"Then why--? Don't you _want_ to?"

He closed his eyes. "Aw, Jim. I want to. I want to so bad. I'd love to be your permanent, official partner." He stopped and looked me in the eye. "I can do the job. I'd be _good_! But, Jim, we can't."

"Why? We can. Simon arranged it--" I stopped, embarrassed by how upset I sounded.

"Jim. I publicly announced that I was a fraud. I couldn't ever testify in court. Worse than that--Most of the CPD thinks I screwed you over. I wouldn't be safe on the street, and as my partner, you wouldn't be either."

"We'd manage, somehow." I sounded like I was begging now, and I didn't care.

"Damn it, Jim, we couldn't. And if we tried it somebody would figure out that I didn't make up that dissertation! We'd be right back where we started. The press. The brass jumping on Simon. People thinking your arrest record was due to your senses and not to your skills. And let's not even think about what would happen on the street when thugs figured out that they could take you down with a dog whistle or some cheap perfume. God, Jim, even me staying here and living with you is risky. Too risky, maybe."

For a moment I couldn't breathe. "So. Are." I had to stop and clear my throat. "Are you saying you think you need to leave?"

"I don't want to," he whispered.

"We could...we could both leave."

"Would you do that?"

I would do anything not to lose him. I nodded, even though the idea of leaving Cascade was sharply painful. "Go somewhere where people wouldn't recognize us right away. It was a big local story, but...."

"Wow." Blair whispered, as though I'd said something wonderful.

"You gave up your whole life for me," I said. "If I have to move to--"

"Stop. Right there. Just stop," he said sharply. "I did not give up anything because of you. I promised to protect you, and I owed you that. I would have owed you that even if you'd been somebody else. Even if I hated you." He smiled suddenly. "Want to know what is your fault?" He paused for an answer, but I could only gaze at him unhappily. "I don't mind so much, losing all of that. _That's_ your fault. And when I wake up in the morning, I think, 'thank God that it wasn't worse.' Because it could have _been_ worse, Jim, but it wasn't because of you. And, I'm actually kind of, well, optimistic, thinking about what comes next. Because," his voice dropped. "I think we're going to be together, and that means we're going to be ok. That's your fault. The hope in my life is your fault."

Oh. Wow. I took a deep breath. I reached out and fingered one of his curls. I guessed they wouldn't be cut after all. "So, we're leaving," I said.

"I don't know what else we can do. I'm so sorry, Jim."

"We could stay."

"How? I can't function as a cop. Maybe as a civilian, in records or something--"

"We could tell the truth." It was out before I realized I was going to say it, but saying it felt wonderful.

"No! Oh, no! Hell, no! We are not risking that. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous how? Who's going to bother with dog whistles when it's so much easier to just shoot me?"

"This is not funny, damn it. I did not do all that for nothing!"

I looked at him, angry and tight and a little bitter underneath. "Joel already knows," I said. "Beverly knows. She remembers the Juno case, I guess."

Blair deflated, turning around and sitting heavily on the floor with his back to the couch. "Aw, God. It _was_ for nothing. It didn't work."

"It...it doesn't have to be...I mean, we could work with this. Things would have to change, but--"

" _Everything_ would have to change, Jim. Have you even thought about this?"

"I--I guess not."

"You'd be too well known and too vulnerable, Jim. You couldn't go undercover anymore. You couldn't go charging through doors first anymore. You couldn't go running around without backup. The sentinel thing is too new, too unusual. They wouldn't let you be a lead detective anymore. They would watch your work, second guess every move."

"Ok. Ok, yeah. That would all take some getting used to." I thought about it. "But, look, there would be upsides, too. We wouldn't have to make up excuses for the weird directions we go off in anymore. And, ok, I wouldn't be a lead, but my senses could get used for all the cases in major crime, not just ours."

"It would be a zoo. The only sentinel in the industrial world..."

"I wouldn't be the only one for long, Chief. They'll be coming out of the woodwork, now. The idea is out there."

"Oh, hell." He sighed. "You'd have to hang out with forensics a lot. Could you stand seeing that much of Cassie?"

"I'd try," I said, not talking about getting along with the forensics chief.

Blair was shaking his head. I couldn't see his face, but he reeked of despair. "A week ago you couldn't even stand the idea. It was unbearable." He sighed. "God, Jim, I'm so sorry. All you ever wanted was to be normal, to have the senses gone and I...I never tried. I never even thought about it seriously. I was so sure--"

"You were right," I said softly. "You were right. Suppressing the senses wouldn't have changed me. It wouldn't have made me normal. But, Chief, running away and lying about who I am won't make me normal, either."

He squirmed to look at me over his shoulder. "Jim?"

"I'm so tired of lying," I breathed, suddenly realizing that it was true. "I'm tired of you making up ridiculous excuses to explain stuff that is normal. I'm so tired of pretending I'm someone I'm not, like there was something wrong with me."

"Jim--look, I like what you're saying, but this is about your _safety_ , not about your identity." He seized my wrist. "Listen to me. This is your _life_ we're talking about."

"Yeah....It's my life. And I want it, Blair. I want it to be my life, not some cheap masquerade because I'm afraid of what other people will think of who I am."

Blair closed his eyes, still clutching my hand. "Oh, God."

"Blair?"

"God, I want you safe. But that's wrong, isn't it. That isn't what you need, to be safe."

"Please, Blair."

He sank back to the floor, leaning against the arm of the couch. "How would we do it? I've already repudiated the diss."

"We say you cracked under the stress. Or that I threatened to sue you if you didn't. Or, heck, we could tell the truth; the dissertation as it stands...well, it wasn't finished. Did the evidence you included adequately support every claim you made?"

"No, but...."

"We could call another press conference."

"Let's not," he said.

"Right. Let's not. If they want the story, let them work for it."

"Jim--every case in the last three or four years will get re-examined."

"It's starting anyway. Better to fight it head on."

"Oh. Crap." There was a short silence. "So after we _don't_ call a press conference, what then?"

"Then we talk to Joel."

"Joel?"

I nodded. "Simon's still out, and in six months the police chief retires and Simon gets promoted out anyway. Joel will be taking Major Crime."

"Oh. Right. Um, you realize we'd have to tell them--well, not everything, but a lot. And I'd want the people you worked with to be trained. You know. In case something happened."

I pictured Blair explaining to Joel what a zone looked like. I imagined everybody in Major Crime carrying a little laminated card with my drug allergies. I squirmed, but nodded. "Ok."

"God, I can't believe we're talking about this."

"Chief, if you're with me...I'm sure I can do it. We can make it work."

"Ok," he said.

"Ok?"

"Yeah." He turned to look at me. I could tell he was still a little scared, but his eyes were so proud. I swallowed. "Damn. I'm tired of sleeping alone."

He smiled faintly. "Oh, yeah. That got old fast."

"I don't think I'm ready for the stairs yet." No stairs, and Blair's bed was too small for two, at least when one of the two had to keep his leg from being jostled.

"Hmmm. Maybe I could set up the inflatable in the living room."

"You'd have to help me get up."

His tiny smile grew into a hungry, teasing grin. "What makes you think I'm going to let you up?"

"Not ever?"

"No, not ever."

I smiled. "Ok," I said. "Not ever."

So he moved the coffee table and set up the big inflatable on the living room floor. "You know," I said, "Endorphins are great pain killers."

"You're not supposed to exert yourself," he said, but he couldn't keep a straight face and he smelled a little like desire.

I pulled him down on top of me and kissed him.

"Jim--"

"Shhh." I kissed him again, gently, calmly. We had plenty of time.

* * *

End No Big Deal III by Dasha:

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount.


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